


Best Years of Your Life

by batneko



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Captain America, Iron Man (Comic), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, M/M, age changing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 18:51:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batneko/pseuds/batneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Superheroes are hard enough to keep out of trouble when they're grown adults.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m encased in armor,” Tony said, chucking his bracelets on the table.  “You only have your flesh encasement of flesh.”  
  
“It can’t stop everything,” Steve pointed out.  He’d taken off most of his suit, folding the pieces carefully in his arms.  
  
“I’m just saying, if one of us is going to get hit by a mystery ray, it should be me.”  Tony headed straight for the coffeemakers that eternally decorated the kitchen the Avengers shared.  Tony had a private kitchen in his penthouse, but he spent far more time here.  
  
There were two coffee machines, top of the line, identical except for custom paint job and contents.  One was hot rod red.  The other, royal purple.  It had been green, until Bruce quietly mentioned that he wasn’t all that fond of green, really.  
  
The red one always held coffee, dark and heavily caffeinated.  The purple one always held something decaf, usually coffee in some variety of seasonal flavor, or occasionally tea.  Both had the standard office rules: if you take the last cup, you need to make more.  No one so far had broken that rule.  
  
Tony poured his cup, pausing to rub his temple.  Steve was still talking, but he was only half-listening.  
  
“-which I why I _have_ the shield, and you were glowing blue, Tony! Not a good blue!”  
  
“Well the armor protected me.”  He took a deep whiff of the coffee.  JARVIS must have turned the heat on.  
  
There was a heavy thud as Steve dropped into a seat at the table.  He had to be exhausted to be so rough on the furniture.  “It felt odd when I touched you after, like it was humming.  I just think you should get a once-over.”  
  
“I feel _fine_.”  That was a lie, his headache was getting worse, and he actually felt a little dizzy.  He moved to join Steve at the table, surprised to find he’d put his head down.  “Y’okay there, Cap?”  
  
“Headache.  I think...” He made a strange sound, sort of a wheeze.  His head raised just enough to lock eyes with Tony.  “I don’t think I should have touched you when you were glowing.”  
  
“Shit.”  Tony grabbed for the back of a chair, barely managing to set his mug down.  “JARVIS!  Where is everyone?”  
  
“Dr. Banner is in his room, Agents Barlett and Romanoff are making their reports, and Thor is unaccounted for.”  
  
“Get Bruce.”  His knees gave out, his vision blurring.  “Get someone!”  
  
“Yes sir.”  JARVIS’s voice was as calm as ever, which was a little comforting to hear as Tony lost consciousness.  
  
***  
  
The music piping into Bruce’s bedroom quieted slowly, typically a sign an alarm was going to go off, or an alert come in, or JARVIS was about to address him.  Bruce had been a bit insulted by this, until he learned JARVIS did the same thing for Tony.  It wasn’t a good idea to startle someone who might be handling dangerous chemicals, and the bedrooms didn’t have security cameras.  A fact which implied Tony had handled dangerous chemicals in his bedroom.  
  
“Dr. Banner?”  
  
“Yes JARVIS?” He was already pulling on his shoes as the AI spoke.  
  
“Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers appear to be in some distress.  I cannot make a judgement on what is happening, but Mr. Stark asked me to alert you.”  
  
“Can’t make a- Are they okay?”  
  
“They appear physically unharmed, but the person I believe to be Captain Rogers is having an asthma attack.”  
  
Bruce leaped to his feet and ran for the door.  There were so many things wrong with that statement that he didn’t even bother to ask questions.  “JARVIS, is there anywhere I can get an albuterol inhaler in the building?”  
  
“There are two in the first aid station in the Stark Industries labs on the tenth floor.”  
  
“Call the elevator.”  
  
***  
  
“Mr. Stark?”  
  
Tony groaned.  He felt like he was hungover, but he didn’t remember drinking.  Much.  
  
“Mr. Stark, please wake up.  Captain Rogers needs assistance.”  
  
Well that didn’t make any sense, so that weird British guy probably wasn’t talking to him.  Maybe he’d passed out in the living room again, after his dad had passed out in his chair and Tony had finished his drink for him.  Ah, bonding.  
  
“Tony!”  
  
Tony jerked his head up, which made it swim.  He was in... what looked like a kitchen, but not the one in New York or London.  He’d been sleeping at a table, but he didn’t feel nauseous, just kind of fuzzy-headed and dizzy.  From somewhere in the room he could hear someone gasping and choking.  
  
“Oh shit, okay, what?”  
  
“Captain Rogers is having an asthma attack.”  
  
“Uh.”  Tony stood up, cautiously.  From here he could see someone in baggy clothes lying on the floor.  “Oh shit, shit okay, what do I do?”  
  
“Remain calm.  Help him sit up.”  
  
Tony dashed around the table, nearly tripping and falling on his face, but managing to slide to his knees next to the fallen boy.  He looked younger than Tony, blond and scrawny, and clutching at his too-big shirt as he tried to breathe.  Tony slipped an arm under his shoulder ( _Jesus_ he was thin) and sat him up.  The boy’s breathing seemed a bit better, but not good.  
  
“Captain Rogers, try to exhale as thoroughly as possible.”  Tony could hear, and feel, him trying, but it didn’t seem to help.  Not to mention it was kind of weird how this guy kept calling the boy “captain.”  
  
He glanced around, to figure out why the man wasn’t helping, but he couldn’t see him from the floor.  Was he standing in a corner like an asshole?  Just letting the boys _look_ at him would help, Tony didn’t have any idea what he was doing, and this other guy seemed authoritative.  
  
“Where are they?” a voice from outside the kitchen called.  
  
That weird British guy reported, “In the kitchen, on the floor.  Please be prepared Dr. Banner, something has changed their bodies.”  
  
“Okay,” the voice got louder, accompanied by footsteps, until a dark curly-haired man appeared in the doorway.  “Oh.  Well.  You weren’t kidding.”  Something about the scene gave him pause, but the doctor didn’t hesitate.  He was kneeling next to them and sticking an inhaler in the blond boy’s mouth before he’d finished speaking.  
  
The doctor pushed the button a couple times, and Tony could feel the boy’s breathing settle down.  He hadn’t realized how worried he was until he had to force himself to relax.  If it was this scary from the outside, the blond boy must be _terrified_.  
  
“Are you okay Steve?” the doctor asked, calm and friendly.  
  
The boy, Steve, nodded.  He took a few slow breaths before he spoke.  “I don’t know what happened.”  
  
“Well it must have been the shock.  Here,” he put the inhaler in his hand.  “Should be a few more uses in that.”  
  
“How do I...”  
  
“Oh, right, you never used one.”  He pointed to the button.  “If you’re having an attack, just push down on that and inhale what comes out.  You’ll want three or four puffs.”  
  
“Okay...”  
  
“Drinking some coffee will help too, the caffeine will relax your airway muscles.  It’s too slow-acting to help during an attack, though.”  
  
Steve nodded solemnly, like he was seriously paying attention.  Tony ignored doctors if he could help it.  But then... he didn’t have any life-threatening conditions.  
  
“Tony, do you know what happened?” the doctor asked.  
  
“No, I just woke up here, and Steve was having an attack.”  He remembered he was still holding onto the boy and let go, scooting back and pulling himself into a chair.  “Do you?”  
  
“I got back before you two, Phil wanted you to get looked at by the medics, and you were refusing.  Loudly.”  He gave them both an up-and-down.  “Clearly you needed it.”  
  
“That is _insulting_ , and I will not listen to it.”  There was a cup of coffee gently steaming on the table.  Tony grabbed it, intending to take a swig, before a previous statement sank in and he handed it down to Steve on the floor.  
  
Something was going on.  This doctor appeared to know both of them, there was still no sign of that British guy, and apparently this Steve kid didn’t normally have asthma.  But Tony had been in over his head more often in fifteen years than most people were their whole lives, and he knew how to play along.  
  
“You don’t need to tell Phil about this, do you?”  
  
“No, I don’t,” the doctor gave him a flat look.  “Because JARVIS already reported it.”  
  
“Yes sir,” the invisible British man agreed.  The voice sounded like it came from overhead.  Maybe this guy was broadcasting from a security room.  “As soon as I detected your bodies changing mass.”  
  
Oh, so that’s why his shoes were too big. The clothes weren’t bad, only a little baggy.  “We’re not _hurt_!”  
  
The doctor glared at him, something a little frightening about the look, then turned to Steve.  “Are you okay?  Breathing better?”  
  
“Yes, much.  Thank you, sir.”  
  
The doctor’s expression changed.  He looked at Steve thoughtfully, then back at Tony.  “You... have no idea who I am, do you?”  
  
Tony groaned.  “We almost got away with it, kid!”  
  
Steve ducked his head.  “I don’t know what’s going on.”  
  
“Well neither do I, but you don’t let anyone _know_ that!”  
  
“Tony,” the doctor’s voice was stern.  “How old are you?”  
  
“Eighteen,” he replied automatically.  
  
“Try again.”  
  
“Sixteen?”  
  
“Not quite.”  
  
“Fifteen,” he admitted.  “And almost a half.”  
  
“And you, Steve?” the doctor asked much more gently.  
  
“The same, sir.  Fifteen and four months.”  
  
“What really?” Tony blurted.  “You look, like, ten.”  
  
Steve looked hurt, and his eyes were so big in relation to his thin face that Tony felt like he’d kicked a kitten.  “I’m... small.  I have some health problems.”  
  
“Well _duh_.”  
  
Steve just looked baffled at that.  
  
“Okay.  Ooooookay.”  The doctor stood, pushed his curls back.  “This is bad.  But, we can handle it.  Is my coffee warm, JARVIS?”  
  
“Yes Dr. Banner, both have been warming since I was alerted of your fight ending.”  
  
“We were in a fight?” Tony asked excitedly.  
  
“Why?” Steve added.  
  
“Because publicity stunts are always a bad idea.   _Always_.”  The doctor poured himself a cup of something from a purple machine.  “You two have no idea...”  He sighed heavily and took a sip.  “I never thought I’d be glad to be medically excused from stressful situations.”  
  
Steve perked up a little.  “Do you have asthma too, sir?”  
  
“No, I have... another condition.”  He smiled, the way Tony’s mom smiled in public.  
  
“Wait wait wait,” Tony waved his hands.  “You’re not going to tell us what’s going on, are you?”  
  
“I am _definitely_ not.”  
  
“That’s not fair!” he blurted.  “We don’t know how we got here, or why you think you know us, or why we’re in the kitchen of the future-”  
  
“I _thought_ it looked familiar,” Steve smiled.  “We saw pictures.”  
  
“Or why this kid doesn’t make any sense half the time he talks.”  
  
A clatter from outside interrupted him, but Tony ignored it as he did anything that didn’t serve his current purpose.  “You can’t leave us in the dark like this, okay?  And you can’t keep us here against our will.”  He jerked to his feet, stepped out of his oversized shoes, and marched for the door.  
  
He bounced off the chest of someone who smelled like a locker room.  His eyes drifted up... and up...  
  
“What is happening?” the giant man asked.  “Who are these youths?”  
  
Dr. Banner sighed again.  “Tony,” he pointed at Tony, “and Steve,” he pointed at Steve.  
  
“Ah,” the giant nodded solemnly.  “A curse.  How unfortunate.”  
  
Tony laughed, surprising himself.  “A curse?  Come on, Paul Bunyan, don’t be crazy.”  
  
“He’s not wrong,” Dr. Banner shrugged.  “We don’t know what that device the naked guy was using, but it could very well have been magic.”  
  
Tony laughed again, and it took a second to force himself to stop.  “There’s no such thing as magic, okay?  I’m not a child.”  
  
The giant patted his head, and used one hand to steer him toward the table.  “You have had a trying day, Man of Iron.”  
  
“I need a drink.”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Dr. Banner snapped.  He cupped his hands around his mug and muttered something to himself.  
  
Behind the giant, a pair of average-sized humans had followed.  They too were staring at Tony and Steve like they were waiting for one of them to do a trick.  
  
“Oh my god,” the man said. “They’re like fun-sized versions.”  
  
The woman regarded them cautiously, giving both boys a wide berth as she retrieved a cup of coffee from the red machine.  
  
“Tony.  Tony.  Tony.  Say something terrible from the eighties.”  
  
“It _is_ the eighties, dipshit.”  As the man’s glee sunk in, Tony felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.  “Isn’t it?”  
  
“No,” the woman said coolly.  She was gorgeous, and absolutely poured into a black catsuit, but something about her gave Tony the chills.  “It’s 2012.”  
  
Tony’s mouth was forming the F when he heard Steve start to gasp and wheeze again.  He quickly spun around in his chair and grabbed for the smaller boy’s hand.  Steve had remembered the doctor’s advice earlier, and was sucking on his inhaler, but Tony squeezed his fingers anyway, trying to be reassuring.  
  
“I’m 92?” Steve gasped.  “I’m- I live to 92?”  
  
“What?” Tony didn’t even need to think about the arithmetic.  “You were born in 1920?”  A thought struck him.  “Oh Jesus, I’m 47.”  
  
The laughing asshole laughed more.  “You’re 47?  You won’t admit you’re 40!”  
  
“Shut up, you laugh like a donkey.”  
  
The man ignored him and kept laughing.  Tony was considering throwing Steve’s abandoned coffee mug at him, until the redheaded woman clapped a hand over his mouth.  
  
“My name is Natasha, this is Clint, that’s Thor.”  
  
“Seriously?” Tony asked.  
  
“Dead serious.” She raised perfect eyebrows.  “All of us, as well as some others as needed, are a team of specialized soldiers.  We fight the people the police and the military can’t.  Or shouldn’t have to.”  
  
“I’m a soldier?” Tony exclaimed, dismayed.  
  
“I’m a soldier?” Steve echoed, sounding much happier about it.  
  
“It’s complicated.” She shrugged, which was very distracting.  “You’re heroes.”  
  
Steve seemed pacified, but Tony just had more questions.  “How did we get to the future?  And _don’t say magic._ ”  
  
“We don’t know,” she said.  That wasn’t much better, but for a babe like her, Tony could let it slide.  “A man calling himself Dr. Everything attacked the team as we were helping clean up some hurricane damage in New Jersey.  We don’t know why, but he had a device that was blowing things up when its rays hit them.”  
  
“Only most of the things.”  The man called Clint pulled her hand off his face.  “Like that mailbox that turned into that big blue phone booth.  Or the dog that turned into a different kind of dog.”  
  
She shrugged again.  Still distracting.  “Like I said, we don’t know why.  Cap- Steve was helping some other volunteers get away, and Dr. Everything tried to shoot him.  You got in the way, Stark.”  
  
“I did that?”  
  
“I let him?” Steve scowled.  
  
“You weren’t happy about it,” Clint offered.  “I believe your words were ‘thick-headed death-wishing bastard.’”  
  
Steve looked offended at that, Tony didn’t bother.  “Okay, so, mystery ray.  And now we’re teenagers.  Wait, if Steve is 92, why is he still a soldier?”  
  
“It’s a long story,” Dr. Banner said quickly, as Natasha opened her mouth.  “And you both look pale.  I think we should get some fluids in you at the very least.”  
  
Clint gasped.  “Let’s show Steve the moon landing!”  
  
“No,” Dr. Banner said firmly.  “ _Weird Science_.”  
  
“Tell me about it, but that’s every day around here.”  
  
“No, I mean go find the _Weird Science_ blu-ray, and I’ll make popcorn.”  
  
***  
  
Steve didn’t think he could be more confused than he was when he went to bed that night.  All these people had been friendly, the doctor had given him some medicine that helped him breathe better than even the inhaler had.  Better than he had in years, it felt like.  
  
He didn’t know them, though.  They spoke strangely, used slang he didn’t know and made references to things he’d never heard of.  The movie they watched had been almost _dirty_ , but the way Tony laughed was reassuring.  Just knowing Steve wasn’t the only one lost in the wrong century was helpful.  
  
Still, he was confused.  How this could have happened, how he lived to be ninety and a soldier, how they were going to fix him.  No one seemed too panicked, they all acted like they had a plan, or at least a backup plan.  Even the strange man who was talking through the speaker had seemed calm.  
  
He was confused, but he wasn’t scared.  This was too exciting to be scary.  Steve was in the _future_.  
  
Someone rapped on a door in the bedroom, and Steve sat up.  The knock came again, and this time he was sure.  It was coming from the closet.  
  
Steve grabbed the closest thing at hand (a very strange clock) and crept toward the door.  “Who’s there?” he hissed.  
  
“It’s Tony!  I just didn’t want to scare you.”  The door popped open and Tony emerged, dressed in an undershirt with a picture on it, and baggy denim.  “My older self built, like, escape tunnels all over this place.  I found a map in my closet.  Come on, let’s get out of here.”  
  
“What?  We can’t, we don’t have anywhere to go.”  
  
“Uh, duh, we’re not _leaving_ , we’re just going _out_.”  
  
“Out?  Out where?”  
  
“Out to see New York in 2012!”  He turned back to the closet and started pushing through the clothes inside.  “Get dressed.  Where are your pants?”  
  
“Th- they didn’t fit.”  It sounded like an excuse, even to Steve, but it was true.  The pants that had gone along with this nightshirt were much too big, even with the drawstring.  
  
“Here,” Tony tossed a pair of slacks at him.  “I was thinking, okay?  We accepted this whole ‘2012’ thing _way_ too easily.  It could be some kind of... of elaborate ruse!”  
  
“What would anyone _get_ out of convincing us it’s the future?”  He hopped into the pants, still much too big.  
  
“Hell I don’t know.  Where would you keep your belts, if you were you?”  
  
Steve grabbed one from the rack, hanging on the back of the closet door.  
  
“Like, okay,” Tony moved on to the dresser, pulling open all the drawers.  “I can see them wanting something from me.  Maybe this is somehow supposed to get around my dad’s strict no-negotiating-with-kidnappers policy.  I don’t see how, but I’m not the criminal mastermind.”  
  
“It still doesn’t make sense though.  I... I’m not anyone special.”  
  
“Right?  So either you’re a part of the ruse,” he found an undershirt that he apparently approved of, and chucked it at Steve’s chest, “in which case you would be doing everything to stop me from leaving here.”  He shot Steve a pointed glare.  “ _Or_ , we really are in the future, in which case I need to find an electronics store.  Like, right now.”  
  
Steve pulled the shirt on.  It had a picture of a star inside a target.  “Well... I guess, if it is the future, I do want to see it.”  
  
“Perfect!  Here, see if these shoes fit you.”  
  
***  
  
“So what’s the plan?” Clint asked, voice dripping with casualness, feet on the table and arrow in hand.  He really had the worst tell.  
  
“Why are you looking at me?” Bruce frowned at his boots.  
  
“You seemed to be taking charge in there.”  
  
“I know how to handle asthma attacks and teenagers, I don’t know how to magically restore people to their chronological ages.”  
  
Everyone looked at Thor.  
  
“I have associates who may be of assistance,” he admitted.  “But it is a long journey now, to Asgard, and I would be away some time, even if I find them.”  
  
“Where’s Coulson?  Is he weighing in on this?”  
  
“He’s still handling the mess we made,” Clint reported.  “From when we were trying to clean up that mess.”  
  
“Great.  Is SHIELD going to send someone else then?”  
  
“I don’t think they want _any_ part of this,” Natasha said.  
  
“As if any of us do.”  Bruce leaned forward and rubbed his face.  “You know what we’re going to have to do.”  
  
“ _No_ ,” Clint said firmly.  “Tony will never forgive us.”  
  
“Does SHIELD have magic experts on staff?”  
  
“Not... after... reasons.”  
  
“Then we have to call him.”  Bruce sat up, and started making notes.  “Natasha, Clint, get that device back from SHIELD.  Thor, you and I will have to contact the doctor.”  
  
“Doctor?  Doctor who?”  
  
“No,” Bruce shook his head.  “Doctor Strange.”  
  
“Nooooo,” Clint groaned.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony had approximately seven RC cars stacked in his arms, and Steve was clutching the robot dog and staring at the stack like that would somehow keep it from falling.  
  
“Can you really afford all this?” Steve hissed.  
  
“You do not want to know how much cash my 40-year-old self keeps in his bedroom.  I think he might have forgotten most of it was there.  I found three fifties in three different coats in the closet.”  
  
Steve gulped, Adam’s apple bobbing.  “Okay, but, if you buy all this, we’ll have to take it back to your building.”  
  
“Oh right.  Damn.”  He considered the stack for a moment, shifted his grip, but before he could make a choice Steve had snatched off the top two.  “I wasn’t going to just drop them!” He protested.  Steve said nothing, and began carefully returning the cars to their proper shelves.  The store’s staff were already staring at them, so Tony reluctantly helped.  
  
“I’m coming back for them, though,” he said quietly.  “I just know I can build something better than that.  I’m looking at modern technology with fresh eyes!  Just imagine what I could do.”  
  
“I’m not sure if it works that way.”  Steve stared around the store, brow furrowed.  “I’ve got fresher eyes than you do, and I don’t know what most of this is.”  
  
“There’s a curve, okay?  I’m recent enough to know stuff, but not be spoiled by it.  You’re probably baffled by, like, phones.”  
  
Steve just glared at him.  He grabbed Tony’s wrist and started to pull him toward the door.  
  
“We’ll be back!” Tony called to the staff, letting Steve take the lead.  
  
The neighborhood around the tower was pretty safe, it seemed.  Tony approved of his future self’s realty choices.  They’d only made it a couple streets away, and Tony had to fight the urge to pop into every single store, even the women’s clothing boutique.  They had the flattest TV on the wall Tony had ever seen!  
  
Steve, for his part, needed to be bodily dragged out of the art store, and only left the used book store because the old book smell wasn’t good for his asthma.  They found a little coffee shop packed full even at ten at night, where everyone was using tiny computers, and squeezed into a corner to discreetly people-watch.  
  
“You know it’s funny,” Tony said, sipping his caramel brulee latte (it tasted weird but he refused to admit it).  “I thought that doctor mentioned a hurricane.  But everything seems fine.”  
  
A young man at the table next to them glanced up from his palm-sized device.  “You from out of town?”  
  
“Um... yes.  Very.”  It seemed like the safest answer.  
  
“All the heroes have been doing clean-up the last few weeks.  This area’s good because Stark paid people to come in, and fed all the volunteers.”  
  
Tony blinked.  “That was nice of him.”  
  
“Yeah, and I think Spiderman’s still in Rockaway.  The whole Avengers team went down to Jersey today.  Oh, hold on, here.”  He did something to the little device, and held it out so they could see.  “See?  But some guy attacked them so they had to cut it short.  Stark brought food for everybody there, too.”  
  
Stunned, Tony and Steve watched a tiny video of... well, two of those people had to be them, but which ones?  The redheaded woman, Natasha, was easy enough.  Clint and Thor kept their heads bare too, as well as some man in a suit with a big gun they hadn’t met yet.  But there was a robot, and a guy dressed like the flag, and a giant green guy.  It looked like there was someone else there, too tiny to be made out on the small screen.  And they were all fighting some bald naked weirdo with red skin, who was blasting randomly with what looked to Tony like a brass hairdryer.  
  
“Pretty cool, huh?  I thought about going, but my store finally got power back, so I had to work.  This could be _my_ video going viral.”  The man sighed.  
  
“Uh.  Thanks for showing us.”  Tony chugged the rest of his coffee while Steve carefully secured the lid on his peppermint hot chocolate.  They headed back to the street, where no New Yorker would listen to their private conversations.  
  
“Do you think the big green guy was me?” Tony asked.  “Because I can see that happening.  Chemicals.  Radiation.  Boom!  Big green Tony.”  
  
“I don’t know.  Who were the others?  And was that a... a fairy?”  
  
“ _No_.”  Tony jabbed a finger in Steve’s face.  “We are not accepting magic de-aging rays, and we are _not_ accepting fairies.”  
  
“Tony, that man had a tiny television in his hand.  I am literally walking through a Buck Rogers comic right now.”  
  
“Buck Rogers had fairies?  Wait.”  He shook his head.  “You had Buck Rogers in the thirties?”  
  
“His comics started six years ago, I think.”  Steve shot him a glare.  “Your generation didn’t invent everything good.”  
  
“Don’t put words in my mouth!” Tony exclaimed.  “I never said Buck Rogers was _good_.”  
  
“It’s-” He deflated.  “It’s not my favorite.  I just started reading one called Secret Agent X-9?  It’s really exciting.”  
  
“Never heard of it,” Tony shrugged.  
  
“What about Terry and the Pirates?  Or Dick Tracy?”  
  
“Heard of Dick Tracy!  I used to watch the cartoon.”  
  
They walked along, chatting about comics, until they realized the stores were finally shutting down.  It was nearly eleven PM, chilly even through the coats they’d found in the closets in their rooms, and though there were plenty of people walking around, they were looking drunker and less washed.  
  
It would have been a relief to see some fellow teenagers walking around, if they hadn’t been hunkered together and clearly looking for trouble.  Tony found himself reaching out for Steve’s arm and pulling him closer.  
  
“Maybe we should head back.”  
  
“You’re not going to be able to buy those toy cars.”  
  
“I can get ‘em tomorrow.  I just don’t think-”  
  
“Hey!” The other boys were close enough now to spot them, and one of them swerved into their path.  “What’s your problem?”  
  
The boy wasn’t any taller than Tony, but nearly twice as wide.  Still, Tony glared at him and prepared to hone his wit.  “Problem?  Nothing like your problem with mouthwash, I’m sure.”  
  
“Think you’re funny?”  
  
“Think you’re intimidating?” He raised his chin.  
  
Suddenly, the other boy’s arm lashed out and he grabbed Steve by the oversized coat.  He yanked him close, and ruffled his hair.  “Maybe your little brother thinks you’re _hilarious_ , but I’m betting you wouldn’t like to see him fall in with a bad crowd.”  
  
Tony felt his fingers curl into fists.  Fighting wasn’t really his thing, but Steve clearly hadn’t thrown a punch in his life.  He needed someone to look out for him, and since they were both sort of in this whole time travel mess together, Tony felt like-  
  
Steve’s elbow jabbed into the bully’s gut, making him double over and wheeze.  Before he could catch his breath, Steve followed it with a sharp kick to the shin.  One of the other boy’s moved to grab him, but Steve ducked below his grip and shoved his hopping friend at him, both boys falling into a heap.  
  
Then he ran and hid behind Tony, clinging to his jacket.  “Hurry! Let’s go.”  
  
“Holy crap.”  
  
“Come on, Tony!”  
  
“How did you just-”  
  
“Tony!”  
  
The first boy was back up, swinging for Tony’s face.  Hardly the first time he’d been punched, but he didn’t particularly like it,  He stumbled backward, nearly tripping over Steve, and ended up getting socked in the chest.  
  
“Tony!” Steve, little Steve who barely topped four feet, charged forward and head-butted the guy in the stomach, knocking him over again.  The other two swooped in, each grabbing one of Steve’s arms, and much to his own surprise Tony flung himself at them, grabbing the closest one and beating on his shoulders.  
  
“Hey! That’s enough!” an authoritative voice broke in.  The boys looked up to see a thin woman striding toward them, wearing a heavy coat and sneakers.  She was Asian, and pretty, and glared at them like she was used to being obeyed.  
  
“Back off, bitch!” one of the boys shouted at her.  The woman rolled her eyes and unzipped her coat, revealing a badge on a chain around her neck.  
  
The three bullies dropped Steve and shoved their hands in their pockets.  “Sorry, detective,” the leader mumbled.  
  
“Sorry detective,” Tony repeated, taking Steve’s hand.  
  
“Go home, all of you.  It’s too cold to be out tonight.”  
  
They all mumbled apologies and headed their separate ways; the bullies toward the crosswalk, and Tony and Steve back toward the tower.  The detective watched them go, standing with her hands on her hips and not moving until the two groups were safely on opposite sides of the street.  
  
Tony noticed Steve was beaming, and looked at him curiously.  “What?”  
  
“Nothing.  It’s nice, that’s all.”  
  
“What is?”  
  
“That lady.  She was, well, a woman.  And Oriental.  And she’s a police detective.”  He smiled wider.  “It’s nice.  Everything is still dirty, and there are bums everywhere, but... I suppose it really feels like the future now.”  
  
“Oh, uh.”  Tony shrugged.  He wasn’t going to admit that female detectives weren’t terribly common in his time.  Not impossible, but not common.  “We say Asian now, not Oriental.  At least I think so.”  
  
“Oh, sorry.”  
  
A man leaning against the corner of a building straightened up.  “If you think that’s nice,” he said, stepping into the streetlight, “you should see our president.”  
  
Steve immediately grinned.  “Do you have a picture?”  
  
“Sure.”  The man, middle-aged, white, and dressed in a spotless black suit, pulled another of those little televisions from his pocket.  “Here’s him and his family, just after he got re-elected.”  
  
“Oh!” Steve stared, utterly engrossed, at the video.  Tony glanced at it, raised his eyebrows a little, and turned back to the man.  
  
“So who are you, then?”  
  
“Agent Phil Coulson.  I’ve been looking for you two.”  
  
“Yeah?  Well we’re headed back to the- back home now, so you don’t need to worry.”  He grabbed Steve’s collar and tugged him away from the little TV.  
  
“Tony, I think the doctor mentioned a guy named Phil,” Steve protested.  “And doesn’t he look like the one with the gun we saw in the coffee shop?”  
  
Tony gave the man a thoughtful look.  “It was a tiny video.”  
  
“Tell you what,” Agent Coulson raised his hands in defeat.  “You’re heading back anyway, I’ll walk with you.  Everyone’s happy.”  
  
“I disagree.”  
  
“Tony...” Steve sighed.  
  
“We don’t know him!  We don’t know _anyone_.”  
  
“You don’t know _me_.”  Steve pointed out.  He walked over next to Agent Coulson and crossed his arms.  
  
Tony gave a long-suffering sigh.  “I know you can beat up three dudes.”  
  
“I didn’t come close to beating them up,” Steve said, quickly, but his cheeks were pink under the glow of the lamp.  
  
“I guess with my brains and your brawn,” he gave Steve a light punch to the arm, “we can take this guy if he tries anything.”  
  
Steve laughed, and they mostly-un-reluctantly followed Agent Coulson back to the tower.  
  
***  
  
“We can’t actually lock them in,” Phil reported, the rest of the team seated around the kitchen table.  “Despite their ‘condition,’ Stark still has clearance over the rest of us, and Cap has equal clearance with all of you.”  
  
“Is his Stark Tower clearance higher than yours?” Clint asked, grinning.  Phil ignored him.  
  
“So, what?” Natasha asked.  “We let them have free reign until we find a way to change them back?  That can’t be safe.  What if someone decides to kidnap them?”  
  
“No one knows who they are.”  
  
“No, but we’ve got plenty of enemies, and two teenagers running around the tower isn’t exactly normal daily life for us.  They’ll realize those boys must be important.”  
  
“All right, we’ll talk to them.”  Phil assured her.  “Cap- Steve, at least, understands responsibility.  And Stark seems to want to look out for him.  It will be a... sobering influence.”  
  
“All right, well, we’ve got this thing.”  Clint gestured at the heavily-sealed box on the table.  “Did you two find Strange?”  
  
“We left a message,” Bruce said.  “Sort of.  He’ll respond if he feels like it.  And if not...”  
  
“I will do what I can,” Thor said, solemnly.  “I know not how long it will take to find a sorcerer who can help our friends, but I shall not rest until they are returned to their proper selves.”  
  
“For the record,” Clint spoke up, “I don’t think they actually mind that much.”  
  
“That’s true,” Bruce agreed mildly.  “Tony laughed just as hard at that movie as he ever does.”  
  
“And uh, speaking of magic and all...” Clint put one foot up on the table.  “What happened to Tony’s thing?”  
  
Natasha kicked him under the table.  
  
“The reactor thing!  In his chest.  I can’t be the only one who noticed it’s gone.”  
  
“You’re not,” Phil assured him.  “Whatever changed their body mass, a scientific impossibility I shouldn’t have to mention, also removed the arc reactor.  There’s no trace of it.”  
  
“That’s not good, right?  That can’t be good.”  
  
“It’s very not good,” Bruce agreed.  “But I need a lot more sleep and a lot less stress before I can even think about where its gone.”  
  
“We’ll sleep on it,” Phil declared, standing up.  “Natasha, you’ve got first watch over the device.”  
  
Natasha pumped her fist in the air as Clint groaned.  
  
“If we haven’t heard from Strange in the morning, we’ll see about finding somewhere safe to send Tony and Steve until we do.”  Phil paused.  “Then again...”  
  
“Oh no.  What?  What?” Clint demanded.  “Something else Tony will hate?”  
  
“I’m not sure.  But there is somewhere where a couple of confused teenagers will not only go unnoticed, but be better protected than they would be anywhere else.”  
  
Bruce sighed.  “I’ll call Hank.”  
  
“It can wait until morning,” Phil said firmly.  “We all need rest after today.”  
  
“Why do I never know what anyone is talking about?” Clint grumbled as they trooped off.  Thor clapped him on the shoulder.  
  
“I am as lost as you are, my friend.”  
  
“The X-Men, guys,” Bruce told them, rolling his eyes.  “Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.”  
  
“But Tony and Steve aren’t, you know,” he lowered his voice.  “Mutants.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter, they’re not enrolling.  Charles will look out for them because he knows what will happen if their enemies find them.”  
  
“Yeah but-”  
  
“Go to bed!” Natasha shouted from the kitchen.  “I’ll wake you in three hours, Clint!”  
  
Clint groaned.  “Second watch is the worst.”  He continued mashing the button for the elevator, until it finally arrived.  Everyone but Phil was going up, so they piled in.  Something clacked against Clint’s heel as he tucked himself into the corner.  “What’s thi- Is this a shoe?”  
  
“Looks like one of Tony’s,” Bruce observed.  “He likes to buy shoes that cost a couple hundred dollars, but look like they’ve been run over.”  
  
“Oh yeah, they don’t have any clothes that fit.”  He looked down at his own feet.  “Someone’s going to have to take them shopping.”  
  
They were all silent.  
  
“Since she’s not here, I volunteer Natasha.”  
  
“Fine by me, but you’re telling her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote all this back in November, so that's when the story is set. If you hadn't guessed.
> 
> It's not actually finished, but I have four chapters done, so I'll post a bit at a time.


	3. Chapter 3

“No.”  Natasha pointed toward the changing area.  “Take those off immediately.”  
  
Tony huffed.  “They’re here! They must be in fashion!”  
  
“No.  They’re three sizes too small.”  
  
“They’re supposed to be tight!”  
  
“Then get the high-waisted ones, because you’ve got a muffin top.”  
  
“A what?” He looked down, touched his hips.  Shrieked.  
  
Steve emerged from a booth, clutching a t-shirt to his thin chest.  “M- Miss Romanoff?  Are you sure this is right?  I don’t mean to question you, but-”  
  
“Yes, Steve, soldiers started wearing undershirts as day wear during the forties, and it spread to the rest of the country over the next decade or so.  We call them t-shirts and you would look strange if you wore anything else.”  
  
“O-oh.  Um.”  
  
“And it’s November so let’s get you some sweaters too.  Any allergies?”  
  
“No, but animals aggravate my asthma.”  
  
“Shouldn’t be a problem with the medicine Bruce gave you.”  She fingered a wool sweater thoughtfully.  “Better stick to cotton blends.  Just in case.”  
  
“Okay.  Ma’am.”  He retreated back into the booth.  
  
After a few minutes of struggle, Tony emerged, wearing jeans that fit only one size small.  “How about this?”  
  
“Fine but I’m buying you some mom jeans too.”  
  
He groaned loudly.  
  
The girl working the changing rooms peeked up from her desk, cautiously.  “If... if you need another size, I can-”  
  
“No,” Natasha said firmly.  The girl went back to hiding.  
  
When she returned with a few sweaters and some boots, Tony had drifted off on his own, and found some shirts with pictures of... well... him.  
  
“Who is this guy, anyway?  Me and Steve couldn’t tell.  Is he a robot?”  
  
“No.  You probably shouldn’t buy those.”  
  
“Too obvious?  What about the green guy?”  
  
“Better not.”  
  
“Am I the green guy?”  
  
“No.”  
  
He held up the shirt, and considered it thoughtfully.  “This is me.”  
  
Natasha sighed.  “It doesn’t matter.”  
  
“Because this is something I would wear.”  
  
“Yes, that’s you, you’re called Iron Man.  Happy?”  
  
“Not at all.  Did I name myself?”  
  
“No, the press did.”  
  
Steve poked his head out of a thick sweater.  “What’s my name?”  
  
“Captain America.”  
  
His nose wrinkled.  “Did I-”  
  
“No, neither of you picked your codenames.”  She pointed at the changing rooms.  “Go.”  
  
Finally, after what felt like a lifetime (but Tony’s fancy watch told him was only three hours) the boys had enough clothes to last them a couple weeks, as well as some greasy snacks from the mall food court.  Natasha shepherded them into the car and turned up the radio so they had to nearly shout to be heard from the backseat.  
  
Tony wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop him, though.  Now that he was finally learning things about his future self, he couldn’t get enough.  He leaning over the hump in the middle of the seats where Natasha nearly bumped him with her elbow when she shifted gears.  
  
“So.  Red.  You and me, the older me.”  He pointed to both of them.  “Anything?”  
  
Natasha burst out laughing.  
  
“Not even drunk?  I’m charming drunk.”  Tony could barely hear Steve make an offended little gasp.  “What about him then?” He jerked a thumb at the other boy.  
  
“Steve’s very nice, but no.”  
  
“Not you, me!  Did I ever hook up with him?”  
  
Natasha met his eyes in the rearview mirror.  She turned down the radio.  
  
“No?”  
  
“Did you what with me?” Steve demanded.  
  
Tony refused to look at him, very carefully keeping his eyes on the back of Natasha’s head.  “Slang.  You know.  Uh.  See, in the future we... Right?  Ma’am?”  
  
“You got yourself into this.”  
  
“I don’t know how far it’s come!  I assume people are more accepting now.”  
  
“They are.  As of the last election, nine state recognize same-sex marriage.”  
  
Tony could almost _hear_ Steve’s eyes bugging out.  
  
“Well, a few weeks ago I made out with who I’m _pretty sure_ was Anthony Michael Hall at a party.  He’s got those big dicksucker lips.  So.  You know.  It was nice.”  Tony bit his lip.  “I don’t know where I was going with that.  Just that Steve looks pretty good in his flag costume.”  
  
“Y... you...” Steve’s voice was shaking.  “No, I don’t understand.  We get _warned_ about those people.  That’s why Bucky won’t let me walk alone at night!”  
  
“This is fun,” Natasha said brightly.  “I’m glad I came.”  
  
“It’s different, okay!” Tony exclaimed.  “Those people aren’t bad, you know, it’s just another way to be.  As long as everyone’s a consenting adult, it’s fine.”  
  
“I don’t... Okay.”  Steve took a deep slow breath.  “Okay.”  
  
Cautiously, Tony turned his head.  “You sure?”  
  
“I don’t understand a lot of things about this time, or yours.  I’m not going to call you a liar.”  
  
He settled back in his seat, still scared to make direct eye contact.  “Okay, that’s... good.  Thanks.”  
  
Both boys stared out the window until they got back to the Tower, Natasha humming along with the radio the whole way.  
  
  
Agent Coulson was waiting for them when they got back, bags full of clothes and bundled in new coats.  He looked as calm and cool as ever, if they hadn’t caught him mid-pace.  
  
“What took so long?”  
  
“You’ve never spent any time with a teenage boy, have you?”  
  
“I wouldn’t think wrangling superheroes was that different,” Tony said, trying to regain a little of his spirit.  “How come you’re on the team, anyway?  I’ve got robot armor, and Steve’s immortal or something s-”  
  
“You told them?” Coulson didn’t, quite, glare at Natasha, but the accusation in his voice was heavy.  
  
“They were going to find out eventually.  Tony’s tastes don’t seem to have changed much.  I’m shocked,” she drawled.  
  
Coulson placed a protective hand on Steve’s shoulder.  “They don’t need to know about all this.”  
  
“Oh no, they know they’re superheroes!” Natasha threw her hands up.  “Their little growing minds are corrupted!  By things that boys would cut off a testical to acheive.”  
  
“You’re only worrying them unnecessarily!”  
  
“I don’t think they’re worried.  They don’t look very worried to me.”  She patted Tony’s shoulder.  
  
Before Coulson could formulate a response, Clint popped into the hallway carrying an entire bag of potato chips.  He pulled it open and leaned against the wall.  
  
“What’s going on?”  
  
“Mom and dad are fighting,” Steve told him.  
  
Clint chuckled, but Tony abruptly pulled away, shoving Natasha’s arm off him.  His eyes flickered wildly between the other four, before he took off running down the hall.  
  
The adults exchanged glances, but Steve thought he knew what was wrong.  He shook off Coulson’s protective hand and backed off.  “I’ll go talk to him.”  
  
Coulson started to say something, but stopped when Clint shook his head sharply.  
  
“I’ll be right back.”  He hesitated for a second, before ordering, “Get some ice cream or cookies or something, leave it outside Tony’s door in ten minutes.”  
  
“Can do, Cap,” Clint tossed off a salute.  
  
Unsure if he was being mocked, Steve decided to ignore it and jogged back into the elevator.  Tony’s “room” was actually most of the highest floor.  It seemed like everyone who lived here had a bedroom, sitting room, and bathroom all to themselves.  His own room even had a small refrigerator stuffed with vegetables, and a blender.  
  
Tony’s penthouse was easily twice as big as Steve’s apartment back home, though he’d only gotten a glimpse of it in the last couple days.  There seemed to be an entire bar, few walls, and a waterfall for some reason.  The elevator didn’t open straight into it, but even if it had, the bedroom was at least mostly shut off from the rest.  The frosted glass did nothing to hide Tony lying, fully dressed, on his bed.  
  
“Tony?”  
  
“Go ‘way.”  
  
“No.  I’m coming in.”  
  
“‘Slocked.”  
  
“Not for long.  I’ll break it, you know I will.”  
  
There was a silence, except for barely-audible grumbling, before the door opened to a red-eyed Tony.  
  
“If I didn’t know about your wiry strength...”  
  
Steve pushed past him into the room.  Everything was gray and white, strange given Tony apparently liked bright colors on his clothes and cars.  “Actually, I was bluffing.  I don’t know if I could break your door.”  He shrugged.  “I would have tried.”  
  
Tony managed a smile, with visible effort.  “Sneaky.”  
  
“My friend Bucky used to pull that trick on me.  He’s got two little brothers though, so he’s used to it.”  
  
“Why’d he stop?  Did you finally call the bluff?”  
  
“No, I just stopped locking the door.”  Steve sat on Tony’s big bed, bouncing a bit.  “So.”  
  
“So nothing.”  Tony shrugged.  
  
“Not nothing.  My father is dead, but before he joined the army, he...” Steve shook his head.  “He drank.  And he got angry.  Not always, but... sometimes.”  
  
“I’m... sorry.”  
  
“You know how it is, though.  Don’t you.”  It wasn’t a question.  
  
Slowly, Tony sat down beside him.  “I might.  Sometimes.”  He hunched his shoulders almost up to his ears.  “He doesn’t yell at me though, most of the time.  He just doesn’t care.  He doesn’t care what I do, and he doesn’t care if I hear him yelling at m- at anyone else.”  
  
Wordlessly, Steve put his hand over Tony’s.  The other boy nearly jerked away, but settled for merely stiffening up.  Steve didn’t move his hand.  
  
“I’m sorry I spazzed out.”  
  
“I don’t know what that means, but from context I’m going to say it’s okay.  No one thinks you’re weird.”  
  
“Yes they do.”  
  
“No.  They don’t.  Do you think normal people become superheroes?  Fight with huge guns or green giants?  Get turned into teenagers?”  
  
Tony managed another smile.  “I guess not.”  
  
Someone knocked on the open door, both boys jerking in surprise.  Clint stood there with a big plate and a bigger grin, “Thor made cookies while you were gone, so I brought you some.  They’re still warm.”  
  
“Thank you!” Steve called, finally taking his hand away to go and collect the plate.  Tony followed him, staring at the cookies dubiously.  
  
“Those look like Keebler.”  
  
“Crap, did they have Keebler in the eighties?”  
  
Steve put up his hand cautiously.  “They had Keebler in the thirties.”  
  
“Wow okay.”  Clint handed him the plate anyway.  “At least I warmed them up in the oven.”  
  
Tony already had two cookies in his hands and one stuffed in his mouth.  “I waffn’t complainin’.”  
  
Steve laughed and took one too, they tasted fine to him, and set the plate down on a dresser.  “Did you bring milk?”  
  
“Tony has his own kitchen up here.”  
  
“I _strongly_ doubt I have milk,” Tony said, starting to sound like his usual glib self.  
  
They went to check, and discovered that all he had was expired half-and-half.  Tony fully intended to drink it until Steve and Clint shouted him down.  They headed back to the shared kitchen with the cookies, and no one mentioned the previous incident at all.  
  
***  
  
“Thanks for getting back to us.”  Bruce set the box on the table in front of him, meeting the other man’s eyes with conscious effort.  
  
“Helping Iron Man and Captain America return to fighting form is for the good of all of us,” Doctor Strange said, in his usual grandiose manner.  This was why Bruce had brought Thor along; he could match the ‘doctor’ ham for ham.  
  
“Aye, our companions have faced many a dire foe in these few years we have been comrades,” Thor nodded sagely.  “Their loss would have dire effect on all in our disparate community.”  
  
“Indeed,” Strange agreed, with no hint of sarcasm.  He bent over the box, not opening the lid, just... staring at it.  “I can sense a power here.  Shielded, but strong.”  
  
“Can you find a way to undo what it did?”  
  
“I make no promises, Dr. Banner.  My magic is not limitless, and even I have encountered things unknown to me.”  
  
“Well... when will you have an idea?”  
  
He strongly suspected he was going to get another “no man can know” answer, but to his surprise Strange tilted his head and said, “If I have no solution within two weeks, it is safe to assume I will not have one at all.”  
  
“Thank you,” Bruce said, honestly.  “It’s in your hands.”  
  
“I will do my utmost.”  He almost, but not quite, smiled.  “I look forward to telling Stark the part I played in his restoration.”  
  
“Oh... kay...  Well.”  Bruce tried to smile, “We’d better be going.”  
  
“Our thoughts are with you, noble doctor!” Thor boomed.  Bruce quickly ushered him out of the office.  
  
He took a few deep breaths once they were back outside, enjoying air that smelled like exhaust instead of incense.  “Looks like Tony and Steve are going to school after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm reasonably certain that Bucky did not actually think Steve was going to get kidnapped by a pedophile while walking home, but just used that as an excuse.
> 
> You can tell I'm sort of mushing up the various backstories for this fic. We don't know much about Steve's parents in the movies.
> 
> Fun facts! They did, in fact, have Keebler in the thirties, but just barely, and Steve wouldn't have recognized the cookies.


	4. Chapter 4

“Hi, so,” the girl waved her arms around her, managing to take in the huge old buildings and acres of rolling green hills.  “Welcome to the School for Gifted Youngsters!”  
  
Tony and Steve stared at her blankly.  She was a couple years older than they were, with long brown hair pulled into a high ponytail, showing off her eyes and cheekbones.  She was certainly pretty, but Tony was distracted by the other half of their welcoming party; the enormous blue sasquatch in a business suit that was currently holding all of Steve and Tony’s bags in one hand.  
  
“I’ll have Kitty and Jubilee play hostess for the weekend,” the blue giant said.  “And if they’re still here on Monday we’ll find some classes for them to attend.”  
  
“We have to go to class?” Tony exclaimed, the unfairness of it temporarily overcoming his shock.  
  
“Would you rather have nothing to do all day while the other kids are learning?” Bruce asked.  
  
“Yes!”  
  
“We have a lot of AP classes,” the girl offered.  “Some of the students have super-brains.”  
  
Steve was staring at his feet, neither the blue giant or the pretty girl safe for him to look at, so Tony asked for him.  “Are there art classes?”  
  
“Oh sure, lots.  Basic ones, specialized ones, art history.  Uh, pottery.”  
  
Tony elbowed Steve, who obligingly mumbled, “I like to draw.  I’mnotverygood.”  
  
“Everyone is their own worst critic,” the blue giant said soothingly.  He had disconcertingly small glasses perched on his blue nose, and a pristine white shirt that was so well tailored it didn’t even have stretch lines across his giant chest.  The outfit and the voice seemed like they belonged to a college professor, not a turquoise gorilla.  
  
“Thanks again for doing this, Hank,” Bruce said, already taking a step back toward the school’s gates.  
  
“It’s not a problem.  This is what the school is for, in its own way.  Children who don’t belong anywhere else.”  
  
Bruce pointed at Tony, “Keep that one off the internet if at all possible.”  
  
“Not possible!” Tony said cheerily, pulling his phone out of his pocket.  
  
“And Steve should be filled in on the last seventy years as gently as you can.”  
  
“We can set up a tutor if we need to.”  The giant, Hank, hesitated.  “If this is permanent...”  
  
“If it is, we’ll deal with that.”  Bruce smiled.  “Stark Industries is paying for their board for the next two weeks.”  
  
“What is doing what now?” Tony demanded.  
  
“You have a fund set up for emergencies.  Kidnappings, liver transplants.  Your CEO agreed this qualified.”  
  
“Why does my CEO get to decide I have to go back to high school!”  
  
“Specifically, she laughed for eight minutes.  I think she tried to make a quip about the forty-year-old you needing to learn social skills, but then she started laughing again.”  
  
Tony nearly groaned, but the girl spoke up.  “You guys are in the _really nice_ dorm.  Seriously, it’s usually for people who can’t control their powers that well.  You get your own _bathroom_.”  
  
“Is that a luxury?” Tony asked, in horror.  
  
“My name is Kitty, by the way.”  She held out her hand and Tony gave it a perfunctory shake.  Steve stared at it for about thirty seconds before giving the most wimpy limp-wristed handshake Tony had ever seen.  
  
“Tony,” he introduced himself.  He pointed at the other boy.  “Steve.”  
  
She grinned.  “I know.”  
  
“How much do you know?”  
  
“Everything, duh-doy.  I’m one of your guides until you settle in.”  She glanced around.  “Jubilee should be here soon, Ethics always runs long.”  
  
Hank casually hefted the bags over his shoulder.  “I’ll take these along to the dorm, you can bring Tony and Steve there when you’re done showing them around.”  
  
“Okay, thanks Dr. McCoy.”  
  
He and Bruce exchanged goodbyes, and Bruce gratefully fled for the towncar.  Considering he’d mentioned a stress-based condition, Tony couldn’t help but wonder why he kept getting stuck taking care of him and Steve.  Unless a couple of time-displaced teenagers were less stressful than what everyone else was doing...  
  
Meanwhile Kitty was trying to tell them about the history of the school, the founder and principal, and the treatment of mutants.  People had generally been afraid of mutants, last time Tony checked, and it seemed like that had lessened a bit as more of them were born and a few became superheroes.  But it was a slow road, which was only typical.  
  
“Are there other schools like this?” Tony asked, wondering why they hadn’t been sued for discrimination.  
  
“No.  This isn’t _officially_ a school for mutants, you know... I mean, it’s not on any books.”  
  
“Is that entirely above-board?”  
  
“I don’t know?”  She glanced around for another subject, and spotted a black-haired girl jogging toward them.  Her hair was cut and styled into a spiky pixie kind of thing, and she wore fingerless gloves against the November chill.  “There’s Jubilee!”  
  
“Hey!  Wow, they’re short.”  
  
“Thanks!” Tony snapped.  Steve didn’t even flinch, which made Tony angry for reasons he didn’t care to think about.  
  
“Well you know, it’s like... We see you guys on the _news_!  You don’t picture someone like that as a- a lanky teenager.”  She stuck out her hand.  “I’m Jubilee.”  
  
“Is that really your name?” Tony asked, shaking her hand and finding it surprisingly warm.  
  
“Sorta.  My real name isn’t better.”  
  
She and Kitty started walking, and Tony followed, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Steve was keeping up.  There wasn’t any snow on the ground, but it was still cold enough that being outside for more than a few minutes was uncomfortable, and most of the students they saw were wearing layers of hoodies and fashionable scarves.  Tony wasn’t sure he had picked up the trends, but he saw two other boys wearing the same coat he was, so he approved of Natasha’s judgement.  
  
The buildings were all old brick facades, crawling with ivy, most of which was still surprisingly alive.  Through the windows the classrooms looked futuristic to the point of parody.  Tony was pretty sure he saw a hologram in a lecture hall.  The girls kept up a running commentary of which classes were in which building, but Tony barely listened.  With any luck he wouldn’t have to go to class at all.  Hell, he could probably _teach_ here.  
  
He grinned to himself until the lack of Steve’s footsteps made him stop.  Tony glanced back, walked backwards until he could follow Steve’s line of sight.  
  
Inside one of the buildings, high windows illuminated what looked like a statue made of crystal.  It was spinning gently, as a skinny girl carved out details with massive metal claws coming from her hands.  On the other side a boy raised his hands, and more crystal- no, ice- flowed from them to form the loose shape of an arm.  After only a few seconds of watching, Tony realized they were sculpting a man and woman, dancing.  
  
“Wow,” Tony murmured.  
  
“Wanna go see?”  
  
He jumped, as Kitty’s voice spoke nearly in his ear.  “What- Hey!”  
  
She laughed.  “They won’t care!  I told you there was a sculpture class.  It’s a good way to work on mastering your powers, if your powers can be used for that.”  She nodded at Jubilee.  “Didn’t you do something?”  
  
“No not a sculpture, I did some designs burned into wood.  Looked pretty cool.  I made this,” she pushed back her sleeve to show off a wooden bracelet with a Chinese character.  
  
“Celebration?” Tony read.  
  
She blinked at him.  “You know Chinese?”  
  
“Are you kidding?  In twenty years they’re going to own us.  Wait.”  He frowned.  “They don’t, do they?”  
  
“Not yet, but tick-tock.”  She glanced at Steve.  “Are you cold?”  
  
Steve’s pale cheeks were already flushed, so it was impossible to tell if he was blushing.  “No,” he said.  The first word he’d spoken in twenty minutes.  He pulled his hands apart and shoved them in his pockets, Tony feeling guilty yet again that he hadn’t noticed.  
  
“Let’s go find your dorm, it’ll warm up a bit in the afternoon.”  
  
Everyone felt protective of Steve.  It was only natural; he was short and skinny and didn’t look nearly his age.  But Tony had to fight off an irrational surge of possessiveness as he watched Jubilee tell Steve about her art class, Steve very nearly smiling.  
  
Kitty had fallen back to walk beside Tony, and she pointed at the moss-dripping building they approached.  “That’s your dorm.  Used to be servants quarters or something, I bet.  All remodeled now.”  
  
“Mm,” Tony muttered.  “Is there a computer lab?”  
  
“Yes.  I don’t think I should let you in though.”  
  
“You have to sleep some time.”  
  
Kitty smiled at him, bright as sunshine.  “You can stop glaring at Jubilee.  She doesn’t date younger guys.  Or much older guys, for that matter.  So that rules Steve out either way.”  
  
Tony heard himself make an offended noise.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
“Ohh nothing.  Just that I think Bobby owes me twenty bucks.”  
  
She didn’t say anything else, but Tony resolved to be less obvious.  His stupid little crush wouldn’t go anywhere, even if they did end up stuck like this.  There was no point in dwelling on it.  
  
In the dorm they met the other boys on their floor, a trio of brothers and a “Bobby” that Tony glared at suspiciously.  They had no idea who Tony and Steve were, and didn’t ask, instead volunteering that they were going to play Quiddich later.  
  
“What’s... that?” Tony asked, innocently.  He wasn’t expecting the stunned expressions he got in return.  
  
“You know, Quiddich!” the eldest brother, Sam, said.  “Harry Potter?”  
  
By now he realized he was in trouble, but Tony couldn’t do anything but shrug.  
  
“You seriously don’t know what Harry Potter is?”  
  
“I’m more of a science guy.”  The excuse had saved him from social embarrassment before.  
  
“We’re watching the movies,” Bobby declared.  “We can get through all eight of them in a weekend.”  
  
“No, no,” Sam said firmly.  “Books first, at least the first three.”  
  
Kitty hooked her arm through Tony’s and pulled him away.  “They have to get unpacked first, and find their way around!”  
  
“I’m loaning you my copies!” Sam shouted after them.  “Jay did you borrow Prisoner of Azkaban?”  
  
“Let me guess,” Tony said, as soon as they were outside again.  “Cultural phenomenon?”  
  
“Yeah, sorry,” Kitty shrugged.  “It’s sort of the Lord of the Rings of our generation.  Well. Not quite our generation, the ones who are all in their twenties now.  The new phenom is... You don’t want to know.”  
  
“Hunger Games?” Jubilee suggested.  
  
“Oh yeah, Hunger Games is pretty good actually.  Look, just remember, if anyone asks, you hate Twilight.”  
  
Tony frowned, and Steve managed to speak up, “But twilight is pretty.”  
  
“No, no, baby.”  Kitty pressed a finger against his lips.  “ _No_.”  
  
Steve was so stunned by the contact that he didn’t even look up from his shoes for the next hour, even as Kitty showed them various game rooms and hanging-out-spaces.  She and Jubilee treated them to lunch, loaded them down with apples and tiny boxes of cereal to take back to their dorm.  Then they went to the library, explored some more, dragged Tony away from the computers, and checked out a copy of the first Harry Potter book for each boy.  
  
By the time they were done with the tour it was getting dark, and Kitty and Jubilee were clearly running out of places to show them.  They returned the boys to their dorm to finish unpacking and rest.  
  
“Make sure and get dinner,” Kitty said, absently trying to flatten Tony’s hair.  “And don’t stay up too late just because tomorrow is Saturday.  There’s going to be snow!  You don’t want to miss it before the ice and water-powered students start showing off.”  
  
“Okay okay,” Tony waved her off.  “We’ll be good, mom.”  
  
“Well I’m worried,” she huffed.  “We’re supposed to be protecting you guys here.  What if you get turned back to normal and you have _scurvy_ because you didn’t eat any fruit!”  
  
“You can’t get scurvy in two weeks,” Tony protested.  
  
“We’ll come back in the morning and help you find stuff to do,” Jubilee promised, shoving Kitty ahead of her toward the elevator.  “G’night!”  
  
“Night,” Tony called back.  He heard Steve let out a breath behind him.  “Ever spent that much time with girls before?”  
  
Steve shook his head.  “Bucky has- had sisters, but they’re all younger.  It’s different when they’re...” he gestured vaguely.  “Have girls changed since my time?  Are they always that, um, handsy?”  
  
“In my experience? Yes.”  
  
***  
  
Bruce picked up an earpiece before he even buckled in.  The chopper blades started rotating and he had to shout to hear himself.  “How is it?”  
  
“Fair,” Clint snapped.  Bruce could tell he was saving his breath.  “They know, they’re making _jokes_.”  
  
“What are they saying?  Do they know about... the boys?”  Bruce’s heart was starting to pound.  He waved at the chopper pilot, who stayed on the ground while Bruce tried to gain control.  
  
“No, they think they’re dead.  Shit!”  
  
“Clint?”  
  
“Gotta go.  Hey!  Yeah I’m talking to you!”  
  
Bruce fumbled with the settings on his earpiece, before throwing it away in frustration.  “I’ll go on foot,” he growled at the pilot.  
  
He managed to hold on until the chopper was out of arm’s reach, taking off his shirt to save the buttons, then pointed himself in the direction of the fight and let the other guy take over.


	5. Chapter 5

The door creaked open, Natasha murmuring a question, and Bruce waved a hand in reply.  He couldn’t move anything else without the pounding in his head reaching jackhammer levels.  Natasha placed a cup of tea on the nightstand next to his bed, muffling the sound with a dishtowel.  She had a second one with her, which she dampened in the bathroom and swapped with the one over Bruce’s eyes so quickly that it barely hurt.  Barely.  
  
He got these headaches sometimes, when the other guy was in control for too long.  There didn’t seem to be a set time limit, sometimes it happened, sometimes it didn’t, but it had been Steve who set up the protocol for it.  Natasha, Janet, Steve himself, and Clint would take turns bringing Bruce liquids and painkillers.  They had the lightest steps and the gentlest hands.  Now, with Steve out of the picture and Janet and Clint both busy in the field, only Natasha was left.  
  
“Sorry,” Bruce muttered.  
  
“Say that again and I’ll drug you into unconsciousness.”  
  
Bruce had tried that to treat the migraines when he was on his own, but it only led to a different sort of headache when he woke up groggy and dehydrated.  
  
Her steps were slightly out of sync.  Bruce knew better than to ask about her injuries, but he also knew a broken ankle when he heard one.  
  
“Try to rest.  We need you, big guy.”  
  
“I know.”  He sighed.  “I miss Tony.  And Steve.”  
  
“We all do.  But just remember, if Tony was here, he’d be moping until you felt better, and then you’d have to listen to all his manic-phase ideas you weren’t there to nip in the bud.”  
  
Bruce snorted. “That helps, thank you.”  
  
***  
  
The weekend was too fast.  Before they even had a chance to make friends beyond their floor, Tony and Steve were dragged into classes Monday morning.  Luckily no one asked too many questions; the students here were used to new kids not wanting to talk about their pasts.  
  
The classes were mind-numbing.  Tony was only artistic in the sense that he doodled cars on his notes like most boys, and he already knew everything they covered in math and history.  Steve, of course, did not, so Tony stuck with it to help him.  
  
It was a little scary how much Steve didn’t know.  Things Tony had grown up knowing, things that had shaped his life.   _Jesus_ , the Vietnam war had changed so much about American culture, and Steve had no idea...  
  
The worst part was World War II.  It was still a few years away for this Steve, he’d heard rumors about rising powers, but he didn’t know, how could he know?  The teacher rattled off statistics and numbers, and Steve fled the room, claiming an asthma attack.  
  
Tony followed, and hugged him as he gasped for breath.  
  
There weren’t any more big surprises like that.  Perhaps it was just too close to home, but Steve and Tony reviewed the rest of the history book together, and nothing shook him like that.  Not even the recent history.  Not even what happened right at the turn of the century, and kind of explained a lot.  
  
And the first week passed without incident.  A couple of messages to Tony’s phone from the rest of the team, one phone call from Coulson checking in, and the discovery that the Quiddich they played in the hallway didn’t actually have anything to do with the one in the books.  
  
“Ow!”  
  
“Two points!”  
  
The ball bounced off Tony’s chest but he caught it in the crook of his elbow, and chucked it back across the hall.  Multi-colored lights flashed, leaving a bright trail in the ball’s wake.  A satisfying _thock_ and a strangled swear announced its arrival at the other side.  
  
This time, two balls of light returned.  Tony managed to dodge the first one, but the second hit Steve and fizzled out.  “No fair using your powers!” Steve exclaimed. He scooped the real ball off the floor and bounced it hard off the ground, striking off the floor and wall erratically.  
  
“Ow, dammit!”  
  
The hall lights flicked on, and all four boys froze.  Tony and Steve at one end, Jay and Jeb at the other, and a strobing plastic ball rolling along the floor between them, where Jeb had dropped it.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
“Nothing,” the Guthrie brothers said in unison.  The girl standing by the lightswitch looked enough like them that she had to be another sibling.  That made four Guthries attending the school that Tony knew of.  
  
“Come on, Sam’s on the phone with mom!  She wants to talk to all of us.”  
  
“Why?  What happened?” Jay asked, looking worried.  
  
“Nothing, she just loves us, idiot.”  
  
The boys trooped after her, calling apologies and the current score of the game.  Tony scooped up the ball and started tossing it in the air.  
  
Steve sighed.  “It’s nice their mom still cares about them.  I’ve been hearing from some of the students... parents don’t always take it so well.”  
  
“That’s true of anything different, though.” Tony shrugged, keeping his eyes on the flashing ball.  “My mom didn’t want me to move out at fifteen, but she didn’t want to move to Cambridge with me either.  I don’t even want to know what she’d think if she knew half my crushes have been on guys.”  
  
He knew Steve was staring at him.  Tony had been very very careful about keeping his crush quiet over the last week, but he kept dropping little nuggets of knowledge.  About how, maybe, it was okay for guys to make out with other guys sometimes.  About how he couldn’t help feeling the way he did.  Even Tony hadn’t thought that much about which way he swung before now, but apparently it was openly accepted here at the school.  Which only made sense.  
  
“What’s it like?”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Having a- a crush on a guy.  I don’t know if I’ve ever even had a crush on a girl.  What does it feel like?”  
  
Tony shrugged again.  “It feels like your heart is being squeezed all the time.  Even when they smile at you, and it’s awesome, it still hurts because you know they don’t like you like you like them.  But you still try and impress them, and do stupid things, because you feel like you’ll _die_ if they don’t like you.”  
  
Steve chuckled a little.  “That’s awfully dramatic.”  
  
“It’s true!” Tony tossed the ball a little higher, taking his eyes off it to grin at him.  
  
“It doesn’t feel like, uh, just being with them makes you happy?  And you always want to talk to them, even when it’s just about your lunch?  Or um, their opinion matters to you more than anyone else’s?”  
  
The ball hit the floor, beeping as it flashed.  Tony stared at Steve in horror.  “You have a crush on someone?”  
  
His face was bright pink.  “I told you.  I don’t know.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“It’s nobody.  Someone back home.  In my proper time.”  
  
Tony was not going to spaz out.   _He was not going to spaz out._  
  
“Oh,” he said, though it came out as more of a squeak.  He cleared his throat and tried again.  “Oh.  You must... really miss your home.”  
  
“I do,” Steve said softly.  Tony wanted to hug him, but didn’t dare.  “But you do too, right?”  
  
This time Tony only shrugged one shoulder.  “Not really.  I miss my classes and my lab.”  
  
“What about your mom?”  
  
“We’ve been here a week and a half.  I’ve gone a lot longer than that without seeing her.”    
  
“Oh... Your friends?”  
  
Tony laughed hollowly.  “I don’t have any.”  
  
“Wh... Not even at school?”  
  
“I’m about at least five years younger than my peers.  So no.”  Tony chased after the ball, rolling down the hall.  “I’m used to it,” he called over his shoulder.  
  
When he grabbed the ball and straightened up, he was thrown off balance by thin arms wrapping around him from behind.  He realized it was Steve almost instantly, and froze.  
  
“Um.”  
  
“You do have friends.”  
  
“I...” He put his hand over Steve’s on his chest.  “I know.  I do.  Sorry.”  
  
The elevator dinged, the boys jumped apart.  
  
“Hey,” Jay called.  “There’s popcorn!  Want to go get some?”  
  
“Sure,” Tony said quickly.  His neck felt hot and he was sure he was blushing, and he couldn’t make his head turn enough to look at Steve.  
  
They followed Jay down in the lift, not making eye contact with anything but the floor buttons.  Someone had, in fact, rolled out a popcorn machine in the dorm’s common area, and a dozen students were already lined up.  
  
Tony and Steve were halfway through the line, and barely working up the courage to chat, when an adult appeared.  A man in a blue suit, unfamiliar from Tony’s week at the school, and from the way others were looking at him, unfamiliar to anyone else.  He caught sight of the line and headed toward it, smiling.  
  
“Steve, that must be you.”  
  
Tony risked a glance, and saw that Steve looked as suspicious as he felt.  “Have we met?”  
  
The man’s smile widened.  “You really don’t remember anything, do you?”  
  
Tony put a hand on Steve’s back, protectively.  “Who are you?”  
  
“Don, I work for SHIELD.”  
  
A blonde girl standing in front of Tony for popcorn jerked her head up.  “He’s lying!” she exclaimed.  
  
The line scattered, and where one blonde girl had stood, now there were three.  
  
“Fine.” Don pushed back his sleeve.  “Hard way it is.”  There was some kind of device on his wrist, bright blue metal, and he grabbed one of the girls and pressed the barrel of it against her back.  “Everybody calm down!  Nothing is happening here, no one is going to get hurt.  All I want is those two.”  He pointed at Tony and Steve.  
  
A burst of lightning hit the back of the man’s head, nearly at the same moment as the girl stomped on his foot.  Every teenager in the room was firing up their powers, sparks drifting from fingertips, skin turning to crystal or metal, objects floating up from tables.  Only Tony and Steve were left with nothing, and Tony found he was clutching the back of Steve’s shirt.  
  
“Fine,” Don said again.  Without hesitation, he fired a laser from the blue device into the popcorn machine.  Something in it caught fire, diverting several students to put it out.  Jeb tried his lightning again, aiming for the laser gun, but Don reflected it off and fired back, hitting Jeb in the shoulder.  
  
His sister caught him, half her skin already torn off, revealing glossy metal beneath it.  Sam jogged a couple steps in place and launched himself forward, his powers making him fast as a cannonball.  He successfully crashed into Don, pushing him into a wall, knocking off two posters and an embossed certificate from a foosball championship.  
  
“Run!” Sam shouted.  Tony was all set to follow instructions, but Steve pulled his shirt out of Tony’s fingers and ran toward Sam and Don instead.  
  
“What are you doing?” Tony hissed, chasing him.  Before he’d gone two steps, Sam was stumbling backward, clutching his burned side through the remains of his t-shirt.  
  
“Don’t! Stop!” Steve cried, jerking to a stop barely five feet from Don.  “Don’t hurt anyone.  I’ll go with you.”  
  
“Dammit Steve!” Tony exclaimed.  
  
“Don’t hurt anyone,” Steve repeated, panting from his short jog.  “Please.”  
  
Impulsively, swearing at himself in his head, Tony grabbed Steve’s hand.  “ _We’ll_ go with you.”  
  
“That’s more like it,” Don grunted, dusting off his suit.  “Be good boys, and we’ll just walk out of here.”  
  
He scanned the room with his laser gun, twenty-some terrified faces, two twisted in pain, watched him.  “And don’t even _think_ about calling for help, or the skinny one goes first.”  
  
These students weren’t superheroes.  They weren’t X-Men.  They were scared kids, and Tony could see the guilt on their faces as none of them moved.  He tried to smile as “Don” shepherded them out the door, but he felt sick and he was sure he looked it.  
  
The gates were a good ten-minute walk across campus, but Don led them to a bare stretch of wall instead.  A couple blasts from his wrist-laser on full left a hole big enough for them to crawl through, though it also set off blaring alarms.  
  
It didn’t matter; a car was already waiting, and Tony and Steve were shoved into the backseat.  Before it was going too fast Tony checked the handle; child-locked.  
  
“Why do you have to be such a hero?” Tony muttered.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Steve whispered back.  “But Sam, and Jeb-”  
  
“I didn’t say you were wrong.”  
  
***  
  
The call came at dinner.  Because of course it did.  There’d been little enough criminal activity today that most of the Avengers were able to sit down and shove casserole into their faces as a family unit.  Even Coulson and Janet were there, reaching across each other for bread and talking with their mouths full.  It was enough to almost make them forget what a big piece was missing.  
  
Clint hopped up on the first ring, beating Thor to it.  He gave the god a smug grin as he answered.  “This better be good.”  
  
“Who’s this? Hawkeye?”  
  
“Who’s this?”  
  
“Hank McCoy.  I have bad news.”  
  
Clint felt the warm food in his gut freeze over.  “How bad?”  
  
“They’re gone.  Taken.  A man calling himself Don, with a wrist-mounted laser-”  
  
Clint beckoned Coulson over.  “Don, wrist laser.  Was it blue?”  
  
“No one said so.  He claimed to be from SHIELD, and he had the credentials.”  
  
“Shit shit shit.  Blue Streak.  Okay.  What else?”  
  
“He hurt two students.”  
  
Clint shoved the phone into Coulson’s hands and stalked off.  “Where are you going?” Coulson called after him.  
  
“To get my arrows.  All of them.”  
  
***  
  
Tony had been half-expecting to be hit with knockout gas before they reached their destination, but apparently no one thought two teenagers were that much of a threat.  It took nearly three hours, and he needed to pee so bad he thought a kidney might burst, but when they finally stopped it was in an empty field in the middle of nowhere.  
  
“Where are you taking us?” Steve asked, shivering.  Don and the driver, another man in a suit, said nothing.  
  
“Okay well I’m going to take a whiz,” Tony announced.  
  
Don rolled his eyes.  “Whatever.”  
  
The men ignored him while he relieved himself, but Steve stuck close.  Which did not help.  
  
“Should we run?” Steve hissed.  
  
“They’ll shoot us.”  
  
“But, can’t we-”  
  
Tony zipped up and turned to face him.  “No, Steve.  They’re going to hold us somewhere, let us talk to the team so they know we’re alive, and then they’re going to kill us.”  
  
Steve started gasping, but he managed to say, “Why?”  
  
“Because that’s what kidnappers do.  That’s what they always do.  I’m rich as a motherfuck, you think I’ve never been kidnapped before?”  
  
“But you’re still alive.”  
  
“Because my father never paid them, and always called the police.”  
  
“So... what do we do?”  
  
“Follow orders, make as little trouble as possible, and try not to piss them off.”  
  
Steve nodded, fumbling with his inhaler.  “Okay.  Okay.”  
  
Tony took his hand and squeezed it.  “I’m sorry.”  
  
“So am I.  I got us into this.”  
  
“If you hadn’t more people would have been hurt.  You’re a damn hero, you can’t help that.”  
  
“I guess.”  Steve looked at him, eyes deep and dark in the fading light.  “Tony.  Th- the person I have a crush on?”  
  
Tony was somehow more scared right now than he had been facing lasers. “Yeah?”  
  
Steve opened his mouth, but a sound stopped him.  They both turned, looking up into the sky.  A helicopter was blotting out the orange clouds of the sunset, and getting bigger by the second.  
  
“Oh shit.”  
  
“All right, get over here!” Don snapped.  He pulled his sleeve back, threatening.  They clung to each other’s hands as the chopper gently touched down.  The blades didn’t stop.  
  
“Come on, get on board.”  
  
They climbed on, leaving the driver behind with the car.  The pilot of the helicopter was wearing a helmet and goggles, and they couldn’t see most of his face.  Once buckled in, they went back to holding hands.  Somehow, clinging to Steve’s hand felt safer than the seatbelt.  
  
“Where are you taking us?” Tony asked, repeating Steve’s question from earlier.  
  
“To the guy who paid me,” Don said.  He smirked.  “He wants you _bad_ , Stark.”  
  
Which meant he knew who Tony really was.  Which meant this wasn’t just a kidnapping.  It was personal.  
  
He didn’t say anything to Steve, but the other boy squeezed his hand tighter.  
  
The engines kicked up, and talking became almost impossible.  Steve leaned against his shoulder, raising his voice.  "It's you!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"What we were talking about!  It's you!"  
  
Tony stared into his eyes, hardly daring to comprehend, as they flew through the air toward the unknown.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a character in this chapter who appeared in the movies (not spoiling which one, you will know when you get there) but I'm using his 616 incarnation instead. Don't worry, the main difference gets explained in-story.

The X-Men took it as a personal affront that Tony and Steve had been kidnapped under their watch.  In their defence, Blue Streak really _had_ worked for SHIELD at one time, years ago, and was an accomplished liar.  But that didn't soothe the students who had been hurt.  
  
The remaining uninjured Guthrie siblings had to be forcibly restrained to keep them from following Wolverine and Black Widow as they tracked the car which had taken the boys.  Jay, with his wings, had to actually be locked in his room.  
  
He broke out two hours later, but by then Wolverine had found the field where the helicopter touched down, and the tracking was turned over to SHIELD.  
  
Coulson spent another two hours looking up all nearby airfields and radar stations, finally confirming that a corporate helicopter, owned by a company that didn’t seem to have a physical location, had passed through the area at around the right time.  Unfortunately, it had flown out to sea after that, leaving a dead end.  
  
The girl who had originally detected Blue Streak’s deception, volunteered with her sisters to try and track him down.  It took time, and the help of Jean and Xavier, but by dawn they had a direction.  
  
Fifty miles out to sea, an old oil rig, and a bone-deep grudge.  The Avengers piled into a Quinjet, leaving Bruce and Logan behind to hold down the city, and set off to find their teammates.  
  
***  
  
Much to his own dismay, Tony fell asleep in the helicopter.  When he opened his eyes, dawn light was filtering from somewhere... He blinked a few times, cleared his vision, and nearly fell on his face as he was shoved out onto some kind of landing pad.  All he could see was the sky, and the barely-risen sun blinding him.  
  
“What...” Steve muttered beside him.  Tony put his arms around the smaller boy’s shoulders, keeping him close as they were herded through a door into darkness.  
  
Down the stairs, through another door, and a hall, with Don and the helicopter pilot behind them, both armed.  They stopped by another door and Don went inside, leaving the pilot to guard the boys.  Tony resisted the urge to glare at him.  The last thing they needed was an excuse to get smacked around.  
  
The door popped open only seconds later, a scowling Don followed by an elderly man in the nicest suit yet.  The old man looked at Tony for a moment, and burst out laughing.  
  
“I had to be sure.  Put them in the room we agreed on.”  
  
“Both of them?  Together?”  
  
“What can they do?” the old man said, sneering.  
  
Well of course that clinched it, Tony _had_ to figure out how to escape now.  He sneered back, something about the man making his brain itch.  
  
Don and the pilot took them down more stairs, until Steve was panting, and finally shoved them in an empty room with bare floors.  To Tony’s dismay, their wrists were bound with pink zip-ties, and they were pushed over in a corner to be locked in.  
  
Steve immediately began struggling with his restraints, trying to bite through the plastic.  
  
“Don’t bother, it’s too strong.  I use these things in my lab.”  Tony leaned against the wall, sliding down to the floor.  
  
“We have to do something!” Steve exclaimed.  “We can’t just sit here.”  
  
“That’s the safe thing to do.  But you’re right, we should try to escape.”  
  
“So,” Steve started wriggling around, trying to get a hand in his pocket.  “Let’s do that, what do we have we can use?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  Tony shook his head.  “Who _was_ that?”  
  
“What?  Someone who hates your adult self, right?”  
  
“No, that’s the thing though.  This is freaking me out,” Tony said, “but I _think_ I actually know that guy.”  
  
“What?” Steve paused in his struggling just long enough to stare at the other boy.  “Really?  But-”  
  
“No, really!  I mean he’s a lot older, but... but I definitely know that tone of voice.  I think... I think he’s a rival of my dad’s, a business rival.”  Tony shook his head.  “But I’m not CEO of Stark Industries, so why does this guy have a beef with me?”  
  
“Do you remember his name?”  
  
“I think it was something stupid, like- like Wrench or...”  
  
“Hammer.”  The door opened, and the old man strode in, hands clasped behind his back, smug grin on his face.  “Justin Hammer.”  
  
***  
  
Logan was asleep.  Bruce couldn’t blame him, really.  They’d all been up all night, looking for the boys, pacing, trying not to smash the walls in.  So while they waited for news, or for an emergency, Logan was napping and Bruce was drinking an entire pot of coffee.  Decaf.  
  
The phone rang while Bruce stared at the sun filtering through greasy clouds.  It had snowed last night, but now the sky was clear, the snow being turned to gray slush on the ground a few dozen stories beneath him.  He took a slow deep breath before he answered.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Dr. Banner, it’s Strange.”  
  
A little of the tension eased from Bruce’s neck.  “Tell me you have good news.”  
  
“I do.  I heard about your bad news, however.”  
  
“We’ll find them.”  
  
“Of that there is no doubt in my mind.  The moment they return home, they will be able to return to their adult forms.”  
  
Bruce heard Logan grunt awake in nearly the same moment as the cell phone beside him buzzed.  He picked it up, and mumbled something.  
  
“Make it sooner than that.  How quickly can you get here?”  
  
“Within moments.  What do you have in mind?”  
  
***  
  
The old man grinned at the bound young boys, really looking far too smug for someone who’d just kidnapped a couple of non-superpowered minors.  Tony glared at him, but kept his trap shut.  
  
“You really don’t remember a thing, do you Anthony?”  
  
Half a dozen comebacks sprung to mind, but when he spoke all Tony said was, “No, I don’t.  And neither does Steve.”  
  
Hammer actually looked surprised by that, so he went on.  “Whatever the other me did to you, _this_ me has no knowledge of it.  I might be stuck like this.  I might never remember, and have to grow up all over again.  Hell, after all the things I’ve seen, the way the other me turned out, maybe I wouldn’t make the same decisions.  Maybe I’d regret what the other me did.”  
  
Tony was rather proud of himself for that one.  
  
Hammer stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing.  “You?  Tony Stark?   _Regret_?”  
  
He had Tony there.  
  
“Your father was a pain in my ass, and you’ve been even worse.  You with your suit of armor, and your _ideals_.  I’ve known you most of your life, Anthony.”  He smiled.  “When most people see grainy Youtube video of a kid that looks like Tony Stark walking out of his tower-”  
  
Shit.  
  
“They, quite naturally, assume Stark has an illegitimate kid.  But me?  Who saw you pouting outside your father’s office?  Saw the newspaper clippings of your stupid little robot, the tv footage of you at the funeral.”  
  
“Funeral?”  
  
Hammer just grinned.  “I _recognized_ you, Tony.  It wasn’t hard to figure out the rest.”  
  
Time to be a hero.  “Leave Steve out of it.  He doesn’t even _know_ you.”  He swallowed.  “I won’t fight.  Just let Steve go.”  
  
“Cute, very cute.”  Hammer gestured at the huge bald man standing behind him.  “Search them.  These two are wily.”  
  
The man hauled Tony to his feet first, patting him down.  He found his room key and the Quiddich ball, taking both.  Under normal circumstances Tony would have had a lot more in his pockets, a multi-tool, whatever gadget he was working on, but he’d emptied it all out to play with Jay and Jeb.  
  
He did the same to Steve, still worryingly silent, until he pulled out the inhaler and Steve exclaimed, “I need that!”  
  
“Let him keep it,” Hammer said, smirking.  “I’m not a monster.”  
  
The bald goon dropped it on the floor, followed by dropping Steve.  As they left, Tony heard Hammer order him to stand guard, and the heavy clicks of locks sliding into place.  
  
Tony leaned against a wall, twisting his wrists in their restraints to try and find a less uncomfortable position.  “Great.”  
  
Steve squatted down, picked up his inhaler, and promptly yanked off the cannister.  
  
“Uh.”  
  
“I hid my key,” he murmured softly.  He stood, showing Tony the little metal object clutched in his hand.  “Before we got on that flying machine.  I read in a comic once, a spy was able to use a normal house key to unscrew the hinges on the door, so I thought... it was better than nothing.”  
  
Tony stared at him.  “I love you.”  
  
The harsh fluorescent lighting in this empty room made Steve’s blush look even brighter than normal.  “Let’s see if it works first.”  
  
“No, this first.”  Tony managed to grab Steve shirt with his hands, and mashed his mouth against the shorter boy’s.  Steve was clearly too stunned to move, but when Tony pulled back, he didn’t look horrified.  
  
“Wh- What.”  
  
“You said you liked me, right?  I’m _nuts_ about you.”  
  
Steve looked him in the eyes, his face so serious Tony was a little worried.  “Do that again.”  
  
He did, with gusto, though he couldn’t do anything with his hands, and Steve barely moved his lips, and he was so worried about his technique that he nearly knocked both of them over.  Steve was grinning this time when they broke apart, and laughed only a little hysterically.  
  
“I wasn’t sure,” he said, by way of explanation.  “I think, I thought I had a crush on you.  But I never let myself think about... doing things... with a boy.  But that was nice.  That was...” his smile turned dreamy.  “Nice.”  
  
“This is so awesome right now, but we should see if that key thing is going to work.”  
  
“Oh!” Steve blushed again.  “Right.”  
  
Luckily the hinges were on their side, and really embarrassingly simple for a supervillain fortress.  It took a while, working on the lower one, trying to be quiet, fumbling with the grip.  But eventually Steve got it loose, and the next step was figuring out the best way for him to climb on Tony’s shoulders for the top one.  
  
Very very gently, they un-pinned the hinges.  Very very gently, Steve pulled the door back and Tony peered through the crack.  The bald man was still there, leaning against the wall and doing something with his cell phone.  
  
“We’ll have to be quick.”  
  
Steve nodded.  
  
He yanked the door open and fairly _threw_ himself at the bald guard.  The man swore in surprise, but he couldn’t react before Tony had the gun from his belt and was pointing it at him.  
  
Tony had been kidnapped before.  He turned off the safety, making sure the man saw him do it.  “Do you have a knife?”  
  
The man glared at him.  
  
“Steve?”  
  
“I think, no, what is this?” He held up a pepper spray canister and dropped it.  “Um, flashlight.  Keys.”  He moved to check the other side.  “No knife.”  
  
“Well, we made it this far.”  Tony glanced down the hall.  “Let’s look for stairs, first of all.”  
  
“Ri-”  
  
“ _Tony_!”  
  
Tony turned just in time to see the bald man dropped by a hammer to his back, the pepper spray dropping from his fingers.  Feet pounded down the hall and Tony was ready with his gun, until he recognized Thor and Clint.  “You guys!”  
  
“Are you unhurt, my young friends?” Thor asked, leaving his hammer on the man’s back while he touched both boys’ faces.  
  
“Yeah, we’re okay,” Tony reassured him.  
  
“Give me that thing,” Clint took the pistol from his hand, scowling at it.  
  
“I can’t believe you found us,” Steve was beaming.  
  
“I can’t believe you guys broke out and had your guard at gunpoint.  I might owe Natasha twenty bucks.”  
  
“She believed in us?” Tony asked.  
  
“She said we probably didn’t need to rescue you at all.”  He put his hand to his ear.  “We found them, they’re all right.  Moving to the roof for pick-up.”  
  
“Aww, what?  I wanted to help kick Hammer’s ass.”  
  
“That is not going to happen for more reasons than I can list.”  
  
“Maybe you can.”  
  
This time all four of them turned, and it was Dr. Banner striding down the hall, carrying a red metal case and some kind of disc in one hand.  
  
“Bruce?” Clint exclaimed.  “What- _How_ did you get here?”  
  
“I had help,” he jerked his thumb at the man behind him, cape billowing, eyes flashing.  
  
“Strange?”  He said it like a name.  
  
“I brought the good doctor,” Strange said.  “And this.”  From his cape, he pulled something that looked like a brass hairdryer.  
  
Bruce smiled.  “Well boys?  Are you ready to grow up?”


	7. Chapter 7

While Clint stood watch outside, having donated one of his arrows to cutting Steve and Tony’s bonds, the others prepared to restore the boys to adulthood.  
  
“Will...” Steve couldn’t seem to stop fidgeting.  “Will we remember everything?”  
  
“I do not know, I’m afraid,” Strange sighed.  “I know I can undo what has been done, but I am unsure what the effects will be.”  
  
“Well it doesn’t matter, does it?” Tony asked.  “The others will just tell us what we missed.  I’m probably going to be embarrassed by most of this once I’m an adult again.”  
  
“You know yourself too well,” Bruce said.  
  
“Do you want to write yourself a note?” Tony turned to Steve, who was still fidgeting.  “Or uh, record a message on my phone?”  
  
“I don’t know.  No.  It’s only... I want to remember this.  This is the longest I’ve been happy in... as long as I can remember.”  
  
Tony felt his neck getting hot.  “I had a good time too.  But we’ll probably remember!  I mean, of course we will.  We’re growing up, right? These memories are in our brains, right?  Except that I guess we have a bunch of memories as adults that we don’t have now, and maybe if the magic bullshit is getting _undone_ we won’t remember after all.  Like a computer.  But you can still redo stuff on a computer if you haven’t done anything else yet!  I don’t- I’m not a biology guy, I’m a robotics guy.  I don’t know how brains work.  Does anyone?  I thought I heard that, that science still doesn’t totally understand the-”  
  
Steve grabbed him by the collar.  “Lean over.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Just _do_ it.”  
  
Tony obliged, and found himself being kissed, hard enough he could feel Steve’s teeth through his lips.  
  
“Wh- what was that?”  He glanced over at the watching men, wearing various levels of shock or amusement on their faces.  “Not that I’m complaining, but-”  
  
Steve kissed him again, just as hard.  “Stop talking.  For one d- _damn_ minute.”  
  
Tony shut his mouth, and let Steve kiss him some more.  For a while he completely forgot they had an audience... at least until his eyes drifted open and he saw Dr. Banner filming it with a cell phone.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“You said you wanted to give your adult self a message, right?”  
  
Clint leaned in the doorway.  “My idea!  Bruce, don’t take credit for my idea.”  
  
“You’re supposed to be on guard.”  
  
Dr. Strange cleared his throat.  “If you’re ready?”  
  
“Yes,” Steve said firmly.  
  
“I guess so,” Tony agreed.  He felt Steve’s hand slipping into his, and squeezed it.  
  
“Very well.”  
  
***  
  
Bruce handed the phone to Thor as he walked out.  “I can’t watch this.”  
  
“My friend-”  
  
“I’m sorry, I _can’t_.”  He gave one glance back at where Steve and Tony were now, thankfully, unconscious, but he could still hear their gasps of pain, see the looks on their faces as their knees had given out and they fell to the floor.  He shuddered.  
  
“It is all right, Dr. Banner,” Strange assured him.  “I did not know the process would be painful either.  I begin to regret my motives for being here.”  
  
“Give them their weapons when they wake up.  They’ll want them.”  
  
He closed the door behind him, being more aware than most what happened to clothing when your body grew a few sizes.  Clint was still standing guard, but he had an arrow primed and ready, and there were shouts in the distance and pounding feet on the floor above.  
  
“Point me to the bad guys,” Bruce said, pulling his shirt off over his head.  
  
“That way.  Have fun.”  
  
“I intend to.”  
  
The sound of the Hulk’s footsteps was more than a little distinctive, but Strange and Thor were too busy watching the changes happening in front of them to notice.  Surrounded by a faint blue glow, Tony and Steve’s bodies were expanding, changing.  Steve not much, at first, then all at once bursting into the sculpted Captain America they both knew.  He stabilized there, while Tony kept getting taller, bit by bit, a new blue glow shining from beneath his straining clothes.  
  
But he didn’t stop there.  Tony’s unconscious face began to sag, more and more.  His dark hair faded, salt and pepper, steel gray, and finally stark white.  
  
“Friend Strange,” Thor hissed, “what is this?  He is aging too far.”  
  
“I don’t know.  I should have merely reversed the last beam’s effects.”  Strange began examining the device, closing his eyes.  “This isn’t right.  I don’t know how to... Maybe I should start over.  Make them young again, and then-”  
  
“Wait.”  Thor held out his hand.  “Look.”  
  
Tony’s hair was darkening, his skin tightening.  Finally, as the blue glow faded, both men appeared as they had two weeks ago.  Minus the stretched or, in Steve’s case, shredded clothing.  
  
“I’ll have to study this device more,” Strange said, half to himself.  
  
“I do not believe my allies at SHIELD would approve of that.”  
  
“They don’t approve of a lot of things.”  
  
The first groan came from Tony.  He rolled over, mumbled something that might have been “pepper,” and covered his eyes with his hand.  “What’d I drink?  JARVIS?  What did I drink?”  
  
“We’re not at home.”  Steve sat up without a sound, only flicking his bangs back off his forehead.  “Oh no.  Tony, you might want to just keep your eyes shut.”  
  
“What? Why-” He pushed himself up, followed Steve’s line of sight to the two men by the door.   _“Strange?_  What did you _do_ to _me?”_  
  
 _“Must_ you always assume this is my fault?”  
  
“It usually is.”  
  
“How are you, my friends?” Thor asked, full of concern.  “Are you in pain?”  
  
“My head does _not_ feel great,” Tony admitted.  “But I’ve performed with worse.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Steve shrugged, and started to climb to his feet.  He froze as his shirt rode up, revealing most of his stomach.  “We missed a lot, didn’t we?”  
  
“Quite a bit,” Thor admitted.  
  
“How long?”  
  
“Eleven days.”  
  
“Where’s my shield?”  
  
Strange tossed it to him, and picked up Tony’s suitcase suit, which got the other man to his feet at last.  
  
“No, no! You do not touch that.  Give that directly to me.”  He practically snatched the case out of Strange’s hands.  “Now someone who can talk like a person tell me what the hell is going on.”  
  
Strange rolled his eyes, and waggled his fingers.  The door swung open to reveal Clint firing at something down the hall, and the sounds of gunfire and the Hulk bellowing.  
  
“Right.  Explanations later.”  Tony activated the case.  “You couldn’t have brought one of the other suits?”  
  
“Not on short notice,” Strange _said._  
  
 _“You_ brought it here?  Ugh.  Do I owe you now?”  
  
“You owe me for quite a bit more.”  
  
Tony gave a drawn-out groan as the helmet closed over his head.  “Okay.  Who we fighting?”  
  
“Your old friend Justin Hammer,” Clint snapped.  “He kidnapped a couple of teenage boys, who are fine by the way, and his henchman hurt two other teenagers in the process.”  He fired off a cluster of arrows.  “Who are also fine.”  
  
Steve’s face had gone very still, in that way that meant bad things for anyone in his way.  “Where is he?”  
  
“Up.  Helicopter pad.  Hulk broke it though.”  
  
“The helicopter?”  
  
“The pad.”  
  
Completely ignoring the way his jeans _had_ to be cutting off his circulation, even despite the button popping off and the zipper breaking (revealing a bit more about his underwear preferences than he probably would have liked), Steve stepped into the hallway, held up his shield to block the bullets, and _charged_ at the luckless trio of guards.  All Tony and Thor had to do was follow.  
  
***  
  
The fight was quick.  Hammer was, after all, an old man, and his security staff didn’t have enough loyalty to throw away their lives for him.  The only one who might have been a problem was Blue Streak, at least if any of them had been fighting him one-on-one.  
  
They weren’t, and he wasn’t.  In the end, they had to call for another jet to carry all the prisoners (the Hulk had broken the helicopter after all).  
  
On the way back, Tony and Steve were filled in, at least until Steve jerked upright and exclaimed, “I remember!”  
  
After some thought, Tony realized he did too.  “Oh Jesus.  It feels like it happened... back when I was actually fifteen.”  
  
“Thirty-two years ago,” Clint reminded him.  
  
“Shut up.”  He rubbed his forehead.  “Mostly I remember being really bored in class.”  
  
“That’s all?” Steve asked, softly.  
  
“That’s _most_ of my teen years. I’ll have to think about it.”  He leaned back in his chair.  “After a drink.  And some food, what kind of kidnapper doesn’t feed you?”  
  
Clint tossed them both a water bottle, and dug out some ration bars with one hand.  The other was busy playing with his phone.  “So you figured out you were the ones kidnapped.”  
  
Steve nodded.  “And those boys, Sam and Jeb... Are they really okay?”  
  
“Their burns weren’t too bad to begin with.  The school has state-of-the-art medical facilities, don’t worry.”  
  
“We should send them muffin baskets,” Tony said.  “Oh god.  Eleven days.  Pepper is going to murder me.  With a Blackberry.”  
  
“She took it pretty well,” Bruce said.  His pants had taken some damage, but his shirt was recovered intact, so he wasn’t the least-dressed in the jet for once.  “She thought it was hilarious.”  
  
“Oh, that’s even worse.”  He buried his face in his hands.  “At least tell me teenage me didn’t spend any money on porn.”  
  
“No he figured out pretty quickly you can get it for free.”  Upon Steve’s scandalized look, Clint laughed.  “I’m kidding!  It was a week and a half, and he was fifteen.  I’m sure his own imagination was plenty.”  
  
“Thank you Barton!” Tony snapped.  
  
  
Despite everything that had happened, despite Steve and Tony getting dragged in for check-ups and hydration, it was still early afternoon when they made it back to the tower both dressed in plain gray sweats of unknown origin.  
  
Clint promptly transferred a video from his phone onto the big screen in the lounge.  “Want to see it?”  
  
Tony ran his fingers through shower-damp hair.  “See what?”  
  
“When you got turned back.  Thor filmed most of it.”  
  
“What?  Yes!” He slid over the back of the couch.  Clint pressed a button, and the video started with the teenaged Steve and Tony lying on the flow, glowing faintly.  
  
“Oh my god, I was that skinny?”  
  
Steve nearly, but not quite, gasped.  “Is that really me?”  
  
“Sure is, big guy.”  Clint pointed at the screen.  “Fifteen years old.”  
  
“Wow.  I don’t think I ever saw more than my face until I was twenty.”  
  
“What?  Why not?”  
  
Steve shrugged.  “Couldn’t afford photographs.  We only had one mirror.  I felt shorter than I look there.”  
  
“Yeah, that might be because you’re growing, see?”  
  
Sure enough, the video showed them both growing into adulthood and, for Tony, beyond.  
  
He choked on nothing as his hair started to gray.  “I don’t dye it, I swear.”  
  
“Yeah, this part is weird, here.”  Clint turned on the sound so they could hear Strange and Thor discussing it.  
  
The rest was watched in silence, until it shut off as the glow died down.  
  
“So.  That was weird.”  Tony scratched his chin.  
  
“Was it just an effect of the magic?” Steve suggested.  “We don’t know how it works to begin with.  Only Strange seemed to have some idea.  What was his theory?”  
  
“He sort of disappeared,” Bruce admitted.  “Along with the device.”  
  
“Bastard!”  
  
“We were all kind of busy!” Clint pointed out.  “And Coulson wasn’t there.  He might be trying to track down Strange now.”  
  
“Or he might be running damage control on the fact two of the most famous men in the country were missing for a week and a half.”  
  
“Or that,” Clint agreed.  “Plus somebody got a picture of you, Tony, and now a lot of people think you have a bastard son.”  
  
“Don’t talk about Dummy that way.”  
  
“Doesn’t that bother you?” Steve asked.  
  
“They’ve been trotting out the ‘love child’ rumor about me since I was twenty.  I don’t care.”  
  
“When you were twenty.  So for twenty-seven years?” Clint asked.  
  
“Shut your face, Barton.”  Tony stared thoughtfully at the screen, still frozen on the image of them unconscious.  “I wonder.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Well, technically, Steve was born ninety-some years ago.  What if that ray aged us both up the same amount, then brought me back down to where I was?”  
  
“So you were _ninety_ there for a minute?”  
  
“I don’t know, it’s the only thing I can think of.”  He leaned back and tilted his head over the back of the couch.  “At least we got a vacation, right Cap?  Even if we can’t remember it.”  
  
“You really can’t remember anything?” Steve asked, quietly.  
  
“Not a lot.  It was so long ago.”  
  
Without a word, Steve turned and started to walk down the hall toward the elevators.  
  
“What- Hey!”  Tony scrambled over the couch and chased after him.  “Steve, what’s wrong?”  
  
Steve slowed, but didn’t stop.  “I’m sorry.  I need to work off some steam.”  
  
“That’s not it.  Come on, give me some credit.  You’re mad because I don’t remember we kissed?”  
  
Steve froze.  “You... do remember?”  
  
“I remember _everything_ ,” Tony chuckled.  “It- it’s embarrassing.  I felt things so _strongly_ when I was a kid.  Every crush was true love, every failure was the end of the world.  Every time I hugged you, I felt tingly for hours.  I’m sure I made a complete idiot of myself most of the time.”  
  
Steve turned, smiling.  “Not at all.  I thought you were smartest, bravest person I’d ever met.”  
  
“Yeah but you were blinded by teenage hormones too.”  Tony grinned.  “But thanks.”  
  
“What else do you remember?”  
  
“Well, nothing anybody actually said, or the names of anybody we went to class with.  But I do remember when I fell for you.”  He grinned wider as Steve blushed.  “When you beat up those guys.”  
  
“I didn’t!”  
  
“That’s how I remember it.”  
  
“That was just... creative dodging.”  He rubbed his neck, but he was smiling.    
  
“You know what else?  We never got our popcorn!  Went and got kidnapped instead, how’s that for a last day of childhood?”  
  
Steve laughed.  “Tony, I...”  
  
“What?”  
  
He took a step closer.  And another one.  And leaned down-  
  
“Steve?  What are you doing?”  
  
“I.  I thought-” He backed up, eyes wide, face pink.  “I thought...”  
  
“Steve, we were _kids_.”  
  
“I.  I know.  I’m sorry.”  He was back in stiff military mode.  “I’m... sorry.  I should go.”  
  
“No, wait, Steve.”  He was already walking away.  “We can talk about this.”  He yanked the door open for the stairs.  He only took the stairs when he was _really_ upset.  
  
Tony strode back, through the lounge, to the kitchen, where he violently ripped a bag of popcorn out of its plastic and shoved it in the microwave.  He glared at the machine for two minutes, poured it into a bowl, and stormed out again.  
  
He pointed at the rest of the team, scattered across the couch.  “I am going to go give Steve popcorn.  And then I’m probably going to make out with his face.  Does anyone have a problem with this?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“Have at.”  
  
“Good, because I don’t need your permission anyway.”  
  
As he stomped away, Clint clicked back to the beginning of the video, the part he hadn’t played before.  
  
“Watch this, this is great.  Though I can’t promise we’re not voyeurs.”  
  
  
JARVIS directed Tony to the gym instead of Steve’s rooms, where he found the super-soldier bench pressing a bar with an almost cartoonish number of weights on the ends.  He overrode his way through the door, locked it behind him, and cleared his throat as he waited to be noticed.  
  
Steve set the bar back in its slots, barely glancing over.  “What?”  
  
“I brought you popcorn.”  
  
Steve looked utterly baffled.  Tony held the bowl out like an offering.  
  
“Okay...”  At least he sat up, straddling the bench.  Tony crossed the room to hand him the bowl.  
  
“Are you supposed to do that without a spotter?”  
  
“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”  He took a handful of popcorn, enough acceptance that Tony sat down on the end of the bench.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Steve’s eyes were fixed on his handful of popcorn, which was apparently fascinating.  “It’s okay.  You were right.”  
  
“Cap-”  
  
“No, you were.  We were kids, we were lost in time.  I- I’ve never been attracted to another man.  It was probably hormones and... emotional insecurity.”  
  
“Cap, Steve, listen.”  
  
“It’s okay.  Okay?  We don’t have to talk about this.”  He took a shaky breath.  “We’ll just.  Forget about it.  Eventually.”  
  
“Steve, I’ve never not been attracted to you.”  
  
Gratifyingly, Steve’s ears went red.  “What?”  
  
“Even when I didn’t _like_ you, I’ve always wanted to shove you against a wall and kiss you senseless.”  
  
The red spread to his neck.  “Thank you?”  
  
“And we like each other now.”  Tony shrugged.  “I like you, anyway, don’t know if it’s mutual.  I’m an asshole and I accept that about myself.  If we were normal people, even if we were us but just not on a team, there’d be no reason not to date the hell out of each other.”  
  
“But... you don’t think we should.”  
  
That popcorn really was fascinating.  Tony fixed his eyes on it, and started working out the geometry of the shapes in his head.  “I’ve broken up with a coworker before.  It’s not good.  Pepper and me... we got over it, but it took a long time, and things will never be the same again.  If you and I dated, if we fought, lives could be at stake.  If we broke up... We live in the same building, Steve.  When you break up with someone you really care about, just _thinking_ about them hurts.”  
  
“You... you really care about me?”  
  
“We couldn’t live together, Steve, we couldn’t work together.  You _lead_ the team, no one could do this without you.  But a lot of us live here, we meet here, it’s my tower.  If we broke up... _Everything_ would fall apart.  This is about more than you and me, more than how much I want-”  
  
He was silenced by Steve lunging forward, knocking the bowl aside, and mashing his mouth against Tony’s.  
  
“Stop talking.  For one _damn_ minute.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Steve kissed him again, evidently intending to leave him breathless and coming pretty close.  He was clumsy and had no idea what to do with his tongue, but Tony was perfectly happy to match his enthusiasm.  
  
“So,” he gasped as Steve pulled back for air.  “I guess we’ll just have to never break up.”  
  
“That sounds like the best plan to me,” Steve agreed.  
  
This time Tony kissed him, softer, taking the lead and showing him how good a tongue down your throat could feel.  It was several minutes before he let Steve go, who was now so red he was giving off heat.  
  
“We’re going to need more popcorn.”  
  
“And soda.”  Steve coughed uncomfortably.  “Cold ones.”  
  
“Yes Captain!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! Thanks for reading, everybody.
> 
> If you're confused about some parts, don't worry, I'm planning a sequel. It's only a LITTLE sinister.


End file.
